Omakase at Neo Mixes East And West And Everything in Between

Over the next four years Houston saw an explosion of first-rate omakase options pop up across town, among them places like Hidden Omakase and its sister restaurant Sushi by Hidden, chef Billy Kin’s 5Kinokawa, chef Manabu Horiuchi’s Katami, and Oheya by Uchi. But what differentiates Neo from everyone else is Justo and Mercado’s avant-garde approach. It’s a style they honed at Uchi — celebrated for its innovative take on Japanese food and a launching pad for many other young local sushi chefs — but have distinctively made their own as they draw from their Mexican heritage and international travels for inspiration.   

For example, while much of the energy at Neo is devoted to nigiri and paying homage to Japanese cuisine, guests might also savor global flavors via lion’s mane mushrooms served with mole rojo, or duck raviolo topped with Madeira-laced Périgueux sauce and delicate shavings of Chilean winter truffles. Dishes like hay-smoked king mackerel, and Ibérico pork, chicken liver, and dried persimmon pâté en croûte have also made appearances on the evolving menu. This successful mixing and matching of cultures and creativity is reflected in the restaurant’s name. Neo translates to “new” in Greek, and Mercado says they chose the moniker to show that Neo is not strictly Japanese.  

“We bring in personal experiences from when we travel and from our backgrounds to our food — Paolo and I are both from Mexico, so every now and then we’ll put in something that has a little spice or add some black garlic mole,” Mercado says. “At the core, we just want to make good food.” 

For every morsel of the 18- to 20-course meal, they not only utilize quality seafood and proteins flown in from Japan and other places, but also seasonal produce like French white asparagus, Vietnamese green pomelo, and Miyazaki mangoes. “When it comes to sourcing, we are very meticulous,” Justo says.   

The chefs also rely on a dry-aging program to enhance the flavor and texture of the fish. Justo tips a hat to Liwei Liao (aka Dry Aged Fish Guy) of Los Angeles’ Joint Seafood for inspiring them to master the method, a centuries-old Japanese practice that has been trending in the U.S. in the past decade. 

Mercado and Justo take a personal approach to hospitality, too. While many omakase experiences may feel like a formal affair, at Neo, the vibe leans convivial, like an energetic social mixer. Upon arrival, guests are offered a glass of sparkling wine and encouraged to mingle with each other and chat with the chefs as they finish prepping. Everyone then sits down together, and each course is explained in detail, from the sourcing of the ingredients and the preparation, to the inspiration behind each dish. Servers come by between bites to top off glasses of wine and sake — another complimentary bonus. 

The chefs have taken what they’ve gleaned from running Neo to branch out with more restaurants under their Comma Hospitality banner. Their second brick-and-mortar, the 15-seat Kira in Upper Kirby, focuses on temaki (hand rolls), donburi (rice bowls), and kakigori (Japanese shaved ice), and doubles as a listening bar reminiscent of those of 1950s Japan. Marc Rodriguez, formerly of the two-Michelin-starred Atomix in New York City, consulted on the beverage program. Meanwhile, Oru, another sushi-centered project, is forthcoming. 

We caught up with Justo and Mercado to find out what’s to come for them in the next year, and why dessert matters.  

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

RESY: Where did your passion for food come from? 

Luis Mercado: It started pretty early in my childhood. I worked with my grandma, helping her out with day-to-day operations at her small restaurant in Mexico. I mean, I didn’t really have much choice. [Laughs] I would go after school and help with cleaning and serving and cooking. That’s really what sparked that love for hospitality for me. I never pursued any other career. I went straight from high school to the States and studied at Le Cordon Bleu in Miami. You don’t really need to have a diploma to say you’re a chef, but getting inside the culture and the industry is the most important part. I cooked everything from Filipino cuisine to French, but mostly have been rooted in Japanese cuisine. I fell in love with the Japanese ethos and Japanese ingredients.  

I moved from Miami to Austin to open a restaurant with one of my biggest mentors. It was a French brasserie in downtown Austin called Le Politique. He separated from the hospitality group he was working with and went back to his hometown in D.C. I stayed in Austin and got a job at Uchi, and then they moved me to Uchi Houston. It was there that I met Paolo, and we clicked right away. We competed in a very healthy way, always keeping each other on our tippy toes to get better and better.  

Paolo Justo: My dad used to cook all the time, and I used to watch him and help him. He used to take me to eat sushi, and eventually, it became my favorite food. I also got into Japanese culture by watching anime and stuff of that sort. I was fortunate enough to travel quite extensively before I got into the industry, and when I came back, I knew I wanted to work in restaurants. One day I showed up at Uchi and Luis was one of the people who conducted the interview and hired me. At Uchi it was kind of like learning how to walk, if you will.  

Speaking of travels, how have your trips to Japan influenced techniques and ingredients for the menu? 

Mercado: They have been very inspiring and great for developing connections. We were fortunate enough to visit a couple of purveyors, one of them being Ikigai Fruits. We bring in fruits from Japan when they are in season, and we like to showcase how good it is — like, we’ll just serve you a piece of mango on a plate, and it’s the best mango you’re ever going to have. Or we’ll give you a trio of strawberries that are from different regions of Japan, and it’s like you are eating three different kinds of fruit. And the restaurants that I dined at resonate with the kind of cooking I like to do. Minimalistic, good ingredients that are cooked very respectfully and then served at a peak temperature. That’s the DNA of Neo.  

Justo: I tell everybody that Japan is my Disneyland. I’m so happy when I’m out there. We are always learning something new, finding new equipment, new ceramics, new ingredients, all that stuff. Doing R&D, eating at all these places. If you’ve been to Neo recently and you see all of our ceramics, most of them are from Japan. It’s a mission to bring everything back. The last trip I had, we had five check-in bags worth of stuff that also included equipment for Kira.  

A lot of effort seems to go into the dessert course, too, even when it’s simply a slice of mango on a plate. What’s the importance there?  

Mercado: You want to finish the meal with something that’s going to leave an impression. Neither of us has been trained in pastry. We are savory chefs and sushi chefs, so it does take us a lot of time to R&D. Desserts are probably the hardest for us, and they always end up being a little bit savory. We’ve done a white truffle ice cream with olive oil and some salt. One of our staples is banana ice cream with caviar. We’ve done some very polarizing ones, like morel mushrooms with Oregon white truffles and dark chocolate. We’ve had other very successful ones, like our Thanksgiving leftovers–inspired one is crispy chicken skin and apple cooked in brown butter served with a sage ice cream and some parsley to bring it all together. When you eat it, you’re like, ‘Yeah, this is a dessert.’ But it also tastes like Thanksgiving leftovers. 

You’ve done collaborations with so many chefs, local and international. How have these partnerships left their mark? 

Mercado: We’ve collaborated with many people in the past including Mexican chef Alex Bremont and the guys from Gaijin in Copenhagen — every single one of those collaborations have broadened our view of what tasty food is. We’re not afraid of showcasing something a little bit Nordic with a little bit of Japanese. We don’t care if people say that we’re not purists. We know we’re not. That’s not what we’re going for.  

You’ve obviously eaten all over. How do you think Houston stacks up in comparison? 

Mercado: Houston has such a strength in diversity, from Vietnamese food, to Chinatown, to chefs that are treating corn very nicely, to a couple of big-name chefs arriving into town and opening up their restaurants. It’s all just elevating the food scene here. Having dined in New York and other spots around the world, I can tell you that Houston is on a path to becoming a great food city. Within the next five to 10 years, people are not just going to come here for the energy and medical sectors. They’re going to come here because they want to eat good food. 

What are you most excited about in 2025? 

Mercado: We’re going to be broadening our concepts to include more cooked food, Japanese izakaya type of food. We’ve been doing a lot of R&D on yakitori and cooking over charcoal, and we’re extremely excited to showcase what we have been working on for the past two, three years. We’re very passionate about showing people that Japanese cuisine is not just sushi. There’s a lot more to it, whether it’s kaiseki or izakaya or other types of Japanese cooking. All those details will come later this year, but we are going to be quite busy in 2025. 

Vickie An is a Houston-based freelance writer and editor covering food, culture, business, and innovation. Her work has appeared in Time, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and Hearst Specials, among other publications. Follow her on Instagram. Follow Resy, too.