UNPRETENTIOUS REVIEW
Mizu
Not yet rated: This restaurant hasn't been open long enough for a full review, or we haven't completed our review process. Read more about how we review restaurants.
The Basics
- Neighborhood: SouthPark
- Cuisine: Asian
- Price range: $$$
- We dig: The raw menu, excellent service, and patio view
- Must order: Tuna crisp, salmon tataki, softshell crab sliders
- Beverage focus: Wine and craft cocktails
- People to know: Executive chef Michael Chanthavong
- Phone: 704-981-9299
- Website: https://www.mizu.restaurant/
Last updated: January 31, 2022
Opening Thoughts
Hotel restaurants have undergone a shift during the past decade. The predictable hotel steakhouses you can find in city after city are becoming a rarity in comparison to concepts that look to offer both guests and residents of a city something unique. When the Hyatt Centric opened in SouthPark, they tapped Charleston-born Indigo Road Hospitality (O-Ku, Indaco, and Oak Steakhouse) to help them create that offering. The result is Mizu, a Japanese seafood restaurant with a robata grill, on the hotel’s ninth floor.
Stepping into the sleek black-and-earth-toned restaurant, you immediately forget that to get there, you first stepped into a hotel lobby. The restaurant’s sleek lines and color palette provide an apt setting for its modern raw and fire-cooked seafood cuisine.
The menu shines with its raw offerings. With chef Michael Chanthavong, formerly the executive chef at sushi restaurant O-Ku in South End, in the kitchen, that’s no surprise. The Tuna Crisp features expertly trimmed slices of big eye tuna, truffled kewpie (a Japanese mayonnaise that has become popular with chefs across cuisines), and ponzu topped with green onion. The texture of a cracker base highlights the silkiness of the tuna.
Those who were fans of Chanthavong’s food at O-Ku will enjoy the salmon tataki, a dish that treats salmon delicately enough to taste the fish’s quality. The softshell crab sliders are a must for any visitor; unexpected heat from pickled serrano peppers and a lemon caper aioli add bite and freshness to the crunchy crab. The least enthralling dishes came from the robata, a Japanese cooking style that requires an intricate knowledge of open flame cooking. The live fire cooking left the lobster tail too smokey to enjoy the subtle sweetness that makes the crustacean so appealing, even served undercooked.
With strong service and a kitchen that grasps how raw seafood is best treated, Mizu helps shatter the reputation that Asian cuisine should be cheap. Instead, it highlights the possibilities of the ocean in a city where seafood has long been under-appreciated.
