A Japanese izakaya serving sushi and sake will be the next dining concept from the Atlas Restaurant Group.
The Baltimore-based hospitality company will open the yet-to-be-named bar and restaurant inside of the E.J. Codd Company building at 700 S. Caroline St. in Harbor East, next to its planned new headquarters and a previously announced new restaurant.
The Japanese concept will open in late 2024 and will take inspiration from a “Tokyo underground izakaya,” the restaurant group said Tuesday. Izakayas are casual drinking and dining spots similar to taverns, where groups of friends or colleagues gather to have a drink and some shared plates.
The 50-seat restaurant will take over 3,000 square feet that used to house a Zipcar office, Atlas spokesman Joe Sweeney said, and will serve a menu of hand-rolled sushi, sashimi, nigiri and crudos. The bar will feature cocktails, as well as a broad selection of Japanese sake and beers, according to the announcement. Chef Timur Fazilov, who also heads the kitchen at Azumi, another Japanese concept from Atlas, will design the izakaya menu.
Sweeney said the new restaurant, open seven days a week for dinner and offering live entertainment, will be a more affordable dining experience than Azumi. “We want it to be much more moderately-priced… so that guests can enjoy it more often,” he wrote in an email.
The izakaya will be connected to the building’s other restaurant concept by a “custom-built tunnel,” Atlas Restaurant Group president Alex Smith said in the news release. Sweeney said the hospitality company did not have any additional details to share about the other planned restaurant, which was announced in October.
The historic E.J. Codd building, built in the 1850s, was previously used as a machine shop where workers assembled boilers, propellers and engines for ships. More recently, it was home to Pazo and then Bar Vasquez, two Foreman Wolf restaurants.
Soon it will also be the site of Atlas’ new headquarters, which are moving to the building after five years at 650 S. Exeter St., a few blocks away.
“We want the corner of South Caroline Street and Aliceanna Street to regain its landmark status and infuse exciting energy that will benefit the city as a whole,” Smith said in a statement.
Smith and his brother Eric Smith, a co-owner of Atlas Restaurant Group, are nephews of Baltimore Sun owner David D. Smith, who is an investor in the company’s restaurants.
This will be the 24th restaurant in the Baltimore region for Atlas. Many of the restaurant group’s concepts, such as Tagliata, The Bygone and The Elk Room, are located in Harbor East. The company plans to open a steakhouse called The Ruxton and sister bar, Order of the Ace, on Aliceanna Street in the coming weeks.
Atlas also has restaurant properties in Anne Arundel and Baltimore counties, and farther afield in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Houston and Boca Raton, Florida.
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