About DC Restaurant Openings
A guide to the newest places to eat and drink.
Churasuko. 1755 Tysons Central St., Tysons.
At Tysons’ swanky new Japanese-Brazilian steakhouse Churasuko, you can get wagyu carved tableside, sashimi skewered like meat, and a seafood tower with both dry ice and flames. As far as owner Derek Liu is aware, it’s the first restaurant in the country combining the two cuisines. At the same time, Liu views it as very on-trend: “You’re seeing a lot of the big names out there, all the steakhouses having sushi on their menu already.”
Liu, who previously worked in e-commerce, entered the restaurant industry in 2020 with Gyuzo Japanese BBQ in Rockville. It’s since expanded to four locations and counting, including in New York and, soon, next to Disneyworld in Anaheim, California. In 2024, he also launched Uzu Revolving Sushi in Rockville, which is also franchising around the country. (He expects to have 20 locations over the next two years.) Liu is partnered with Danny Nguyen (a breakdancing star) and Ivea Restaurant Group—led by his “big brother” Edward Wong—which has its own impressive array of trendy Asian-inspired restaurants throughout the DC area and beyond.
Liu says the space, formerly home to Jack’s Ranch, helped to determine the concept. He notes that the building had a relatively small first-floor kitchen that was only big enough to serve the first-floor dining room. It also had a larger basement carryout kitchen, but it was far enough from the second-floor mezzanine dining room that Liu worried food may get cold before it hit tables. “I came up with this idea that it has to be churrasco-style skewers,” he says. “Without that, the whole entire upstairs cannot be in operation.”
Only the downstairs dining room and bar is open for now. The upstairs dining room is slated to open mid-January, and a “grand opening” with expanded menu will follow in February.
Churasuko’s menu includes both Japanese and Brazilian dishes—plus some that fuse the two cuisines. Brazilian cheese bread (pão de queijo) is paired with gochujang, miso, and sesame butters, while sushi incorporates some of the tropical flavors of Brazil. Other dishes span from uni pasta to miso lobster bisque to wagyu fried rice. The biggest spectacle: a splurgy “fire & ice” seafood tower featuring sushi, sashimi, and raw oysters with dry ice on the bottom, plus grilled shrimp, lobster, and oysters Rockefeller torched with flames on top.
Tableside-carved steaks are also a main attraction with a $125 tasting of American, Australian, and A5 Japanese wagyu currently available. The restaurant plans to introduce tiered all-you-can-eat wagyu options. Liu says he’d already been working with 10 different meat vendors at Gyuzo to secure the highest quality meat possible.
Cocktails incorporate Japanese spirits and sake but also some tropical Brazilian flavors. For example, one drink called “Pink Dragon” combines Japanese shochu and Brazilian cachaca with dragon fruit puree, black-tea syrup, and yuzu juice.
The glass-enclosed, high-ceilinged dining room has a dreamy quality to it, juxtaposing traditional sake barrels alongside a massive abstract tree with LED lighting that branches onto the ceiling. A private party room for 20 to 25 people aims to have a “Miami lounge vibe,” Liu says. The party room will also have access to a “VIP” counter that sits on the edge of the bar with a water feature running through it, inspired by Asian-style tea tables. Liu says he’s working to design a special menu just for that table.
Meanwhile, Liu is looking to add more fusion concepts to his roster. He’s opening a Korean-Irish pub called KPUB in Rockville this year. “We’re bringing the two best heavy drinking cultures together, combined to a speakeasy, karaoke room,” he says.
Jessica Sidman covers the people and trends behind DC’s food and drink scene. Before joining Washingtonian in July 2016, she was Food Editor and Young & Hungry columnist at Washington City Paper. She is a Colorado native and University of Pennsylvania grad.
