Virago is a posh, loungy sushi restaurant located in Nashville's trendy downtown neighborhood, the Gulch. I thought it was alright.
Virago is part of the "upscale" M Street restaurant group which includes five restaurants along McGavock between 12th and 11th Aves. They are: Kayne Prime (steakhouse), Moto (Italian), Saint Anejo (Mexican), Virago, and Whiskey Kitchen (pub grub). We showed up to McGavock around 9:20pm on a Friday night without a reservation to any of these places. After first checking with Whiskey Kitchen and then Saint Anejo, we settled on Virago because they could seat us almost immediately. Whiskey Kitchen and Saint Anejo were packed with waits. There were plenty of open tables at Virago.
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All three of Whiskey Kitchen, Saint Anejo, and Virago looked modern and stylish. It's evident this company has put a lot of money into the construction and design of its restaurants. Virago is the oldest of the bunch. It opened in 2000. It's been in its current spot since 2010 (the original location was in Midtown). This isn't an authentic Japanese or sushi restaurant, but more of a sleek Americanized sushi and Asian fusion joint with a huge drink menu. I'm not a huge fan of these types of places as the food can often be subpar and overpriced. Virago pretty much fell in line.
The restaurant has a swanky aesthetic. When we visited, it felt a lot like a lounge complete with lounge music and dim lighting. The place is spacious. There's a sizable wraparound sushi bar and multiple dining rooms and seating areas including a large lounge/waiting area with couches. There are private booths, big tables for groups, and a variety of lighting from pendant lights to recessed lighting. This restaurant can easily accommodate groups (we had six in ours) and the candle-lit ambiance is ideal for dates too.
The dinner menu had a decent selection of Japanese and fusiony food. They included salads and appetizers ($7-14 each) like "V2 edamame" (charred edamame with togarashi Japanese spice mix and sweet soy sauce) and yellowtail jalapeno (a popular app); ishiyaki - foods cooked over hot stones ($29-96 per order); agemono - deep-fried dishes ($9-19 each); robatayaki - skewers ($9-24 per order) and meat/seafood ($22-34 each) cooked over charcoal; nigiri and sashimi ($6-15 for two pieces); and makimono - rolls ($13-29 each). They also had chirashi - assorted sashimi over sushi rice ($24 for a small size, $42 for a large), omakase - a chef's tasting ($85 for the "chef's tour" and $95 for the "sushi tour"), and more. Finally, there were daily specials such as ramen ($17), Waygu strip steak ($30), and matcha sponge cake ($12).
The drink menu was extensive: cocktails, wine by the bottle or by the glass, over 40 selections of sake (impressive), and all sorts of beer and spirits (scotch, bourbon, Japanese whisky, gin, tequila, vodka, rum, etc.).
Here's what I tried:
* Ishiyaki Wagyu strip, 6 oz. ($35) - hot rock, togarashi salt
* Chirashi don, large size ($42) - chef's sashimi selection on rice
* Sake #702. Ozeki Nigori, 375 mL ($17) - crisp and vibrant, unfiltered
In general, the food was good, though not great, and everything was presented nicely.
The ishiyaki Wagyu strip was quite tasty though 6 ounces of meat wasn't much. However, what little meat there was was high quality. The meat, which had great marbling, was served raw and cut into thin slices. This was a cook-it-yourself dish. Each slice of meat was cooked, sizzling, on top of a single hot black stone. This dish was 100% meat aside from a miniscule amount of green onion (primarily used as a garnish), oil (I believe it was sesame oil, to help with cooking), two sauces (one a savory dipping sauce and the other a concentrated chili sauce, perhaps Sriracha), and togarashi salt which was more salt than togarashi. Togarashi (or shichimi) contains seven different ingredients including various pepper flakes and sesame seeds. The stone lost its heat towards the end of the meal, so the server had to bring another one. While this dish was yummy, it wasn't filling.
Since I'm allergic to shrimp, I asked for the chirashi don to be prepared without shrimp. There was no shrimp on the plate, but my mouth still experienced a mild allergic reaction. There was definitely some cross-contamination going on. Aside from that, I thought the chirashi was average at best. I order chirashi often at sushi restaurants and Virago's version was simply OK. The large version was filling (at $42, it should be). It contained plenty of thick slices of ahi tuna, yellowtail, salmon, escolar, and albacore tuna plus avocado, cucumber, and multicolored fish eggs (either tobiko or masago).
We got multiple bottles of the Ozeki Nigori, a cloudy, milky-white sake. It was slightly sweet and I liked it.
Service from Regan was good. read more