Ed Arai has cooked for Jimmy Kimmel, Dr. Dre, Bob Iger and countless other executives and celebrities.
But today, the RiNo resident says he’d rather cook for his neighbors instead.
“I want to put as many meals in hands as possible in this neighborhood,” he said. “With all these little cube apartments, there’s got to be hungry people that can’t cook that’ll find us to be so adoring.”
Come October, the chef will open Señor Tanuki at 3001 Brighton Blvd. in the Fabrica office building. He said it will be an “Asian Chipotle, but a little more elevated,” coupled with a coffee and cocktail bar.
Arai, 53, came to Denver in 2018 after 20 years as a chef in Los Angeles, California. He’s worked for Wolfgang Puck, served meals to Disney’s C-suite executives in their private kitchen, and opened Capital One airport lounges across the U.S.
“From all these journeys I’ve taken, I’ve learned what I want to do with this concept,” Arai said of Señor Tanuki.
“My two favorite foods in the world are Japanese and Mexican, and that seems like most people,” he added. “We’re not talking Mexican like bean and cheese burrito kind of Mexican. We’re talking like Mexico City meets Osaka, Japan.”
Tanuki refers to a raccoon dog common in Japanese storytelling.
“Tanuki, in Japanese folklore, is a shape-shifting trickster, he’s a traveler,” Arai said. “He traveled from Japan to Mexico City, and he wound up in Denver.”
Arai, born in Osaka, plans to subtly merge the cultures and flavors together in a way he says won’t leave consumers heavy and bloated after eating. Bowls come bento-style, with little compartments for carbs, meat and vegetables. Customers can also opt for a mushroom dashi corn tortilla.
If you’re not feeling rice, you can roll with the soba noodle salad. If you want to spice up the food with a zingy dressing, there’ll be a yakitori sauce, served warm.
“L.A., back in the ’90s and 2000s, the Mexican influence on the food was so humongous there,” Arai said of his desire to mesh the two cuisines. “The street cred comes from the people who I worked with in that cuisine in that area in that era.”
A cafe bar with a heavy matcha emphasis will operate in the space during the mornings, transitioning into a cocktail bar by night.
The chef intends to ink deals with his liquor suppliers, promising to only use their spirit if they can cut costs for him that he can pass along to the consumer. Cocktails will also be made in batches to increase efficiency and decrease labor costs.
“I hate the $15 margarita,” Arai said.
But, as with the food, customers should expect a funky fusion of flavors in their drinks. Yuzu margaritas and shiso negronis will be two of the offerings.
Arai also hopes to get his hands on a Toki highball machine from Japan to make the classic cocktail, saying the device produces a “life-changing” drink.
“I’ve lived in Japan. They take life more seriously than we ever will. There’s no way we’re going to do a better thing,” Arai said of the machine.
Much of the restaurantap startup costs will come from the wallet of Arai’s partner, Rob Crandall, an expert witness and Los Angeles consultant with deep business connections.
“He has his investors that I don’t know. … he wouldn’t have greenlit the project if he didn’t believe it,” Arai said.
The chef also said his new landlord, Ben Woolf of Boulder-based Conscience Bay Co., has been helpful, too.
“As far as our rent structure is concerned, or helping us with the build-out, he’s been nothing but tremendous from the start,” Arai said.
Woolf first tried the chef’s food at a tiny kitchenette inside Fabrica.
“He offered to bring in a hot plate and he did a lot of the cooking and prep work at home and pulled everything together for us to taste,” he said.
“It was clear that he was a well-trained chef and could create exciting flavors and dishes.”
Woolf declined to share specifics of the lease for the 3,500-square-foot space, but said Conscience Bay is contributing to the build-out costs. The firm paid $19 million for the 160,000-square-foot Fabrica building in September 2024.
The Zall Co.’s Stacey DePalma and Kyle Framson represented Woolf in the deal.
Arai’s broker, Marcia Mueller, said the building’s existing clientele and proximity to other office buildings and apartment complexes made it an easy sell for the chef.
“The office users are clamoring for more lunch business,” she said.
Mueller toured some properties in LoDo and on Platte Street. “But he was clearly always interested in RiNo, that was the assignment,” she added.
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