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Nahita — a one-year-old Bay Village restaurant that blended Japanese and Peruvian food (nikkei cuisine, also present at Boston’s Ruka) — is now officially closed after several days of murmurs about the restaurant being locked and dark during business hours.
In a message from a rep titled “Goodbye for now,” Nahita announced today:
Effective immediately Nahita restaurant has closed. Even though the Nahita team has to say farewell it wishes to express its thanks to the wonderful community of Boston and fantastic staff who made this previous year at Nahita a huge success. We look forward to sharing many more memories and cooking up new flavors with you in the 100 Arlington Street space in Bay Village soon, stay tuned.
The short-lived restaurant also featured hints of Turkish flavor, a nod to its ownership team, an international restaurant group with Turkish roots, Doğuş Restaurant Entertainment and Management (Dream, stylized as d.ream). The group is also behind “Salt Bae’s” restaurants and many more, including the Istanbul location of the high-end Japanese restaurant Zuma, which recently opened a Boston location.
Nahita — which won Eater Boston’s 2018 Design of the Year award thanks to its gorgeous space — took over the location of Liquid Art House, which was open from 2014 to 2017 (and was also very attractive). Liquid Art House founder Ruta Laukien was a minority partner in Nahita, but Dream’s representatives noted when Nahita opened that Dream was the owner and operator and the new restaurant was not connected to the old.
Nahita was designed to be a close sibling to one of Dream’s other brands, Fenix, which has locations in Turkey. Given the language of Nahita’s farewell statement, it seems the restaurant group may be doing something else with the space — Will Boston be subjected to a Salt Bae invasion? — but the group has not announced any other details at this time. This story will be updated as more information becomes available.
• Nahita Coverage on Eater [EBOS]
