What Exactly Is Experience Zuzu? Here’s What We Know So Far.

Experience Zuzu has been dropping hints around its Nashville debut, but defining the venue hasn’t been easy. Is it a high-end sushi restaurant? An “Asian-inspired dining concept”? A club and lounge?

“I don’t like to coin my design as a club-restaurant or a restaurant that serves food. That’s why we call ourselves experiences,” says Zaid Elia, CEO and founder of the Elia Group, a real estate development and hospitality company based in Michigan that runs Experience Zuzu.

Keeping an air of mystery around the space is important to Elia. But the Detroit-based experiential restaurant — which will open in fall or winter this year in Nashville’s former Green Pheasant space at 215 1st Avenue South — aims to compete with some of the splashy, immersive environments typically found in Miami and Las Vegas, cities that greatly influenced Elia’s vision for a high-energy party destination. “You have to have some type of emotional connection when you walk in, and certain restaurants in Miami and Vegas seem to do that very well.”

But Elia, who began his career as a real estate lawyer before moving into hospitality as the owner-operator of Subway franchises and a developer of several high-end dining concepts throughout Detroit, chose Nashville for the second iteration of Experience Zuzu due to its growth and heightened demand as a travel destination. He’s counting on events like the Country Music Awards and the Grand Prix to continue to draw crowds to Nashville’s bustling bar and restaurant scene.

Compared to the Detroit location, Experience Zuzu’s Nashville space will be approximately 40 percent larger, clocking in at 9,800 square feet to accommodate those crowds. “I was limited by space in Detroit,” says Elia. “Here, I’m allowed to do a little more, like expand the kitchen, serve more customers, and do all the things that I’ve learned along the way in Detroit.”

In terms of design, expect over-the-top theatrics thanks to New York-based iCrave, the same outfit behind Las Vegas’ Sphere and Miami’s Komodo. Emerald green booths, vampy red accents, and warm stone countertops set the mood around a massive oval-shaped bar in the middle of the main room, which will drive the energy of Zuzu. Upstairs, visitors will find a high-end cocktail lounge that’ll host a DJ later into the night but can be used as a private event space as well.

For the menu, sushi and sashimi will indeed be present, but Elia doesn’t want Zuzu to be put into a box — “I wouldn’t say we’re strictly a Japanese restaurant. We take a lot of Asian flavors and kind of put them together,” he says of the menu’s blended influences. Tomahawk steaks, A5 wagyu, Thai branzino, and wok-fried dishes join various sushi rolls as mains, but Elia is particularly excited about the menu’s starters. “We have tempura fries and an item called Golden Wagyu croquettes, which are amazing,” he says.

The cocktail menu also leans on Asian flavors and has a flair for showmanship, as evidenced by the Big and Bold 11 Not a 10, a drink served in a two-and-a-half ounce gold flask that can be taken home.

The culinary offerings at Zuzu will initially be executed by a team from the Detroit location while a local crew comes on board.

Ultimately, Elia wants those who go to Experience Zuzu to feel an emotional connection to the space when they walk in. He says it will be a place where the entire story of their night can unfold. “It feels less like the pre-party and more like the party itself,” he says.