Salaryman, a Popular Pop-Up Izakaya, Pins Permanent Digs in Bishop Arts

A well-regarded Dallas chef known for his izakaya pop-up dinners now has a permanent home.

Doors are now open at Salaryman, chef Justin Holt’s small, Japanese pub, which is offering yakitori and ramen, as well as Japanese whiskey and shochu.

His new Bishop Arts restaurant is an intimate dining room with just 27 seats at a large communal table, three small tables and a half-dozen seats at the bar. An open kitchen blurs the lines between the front and back of house.

The name is inspired by the salaryman culture of Japan, where workers log long hours.

“It’s where hard-working folks can go to shrug off the stress of the day,” Holt says in a release. “It’s easy to drop in for drinks and a quick dinner with friends.”

Handmade ramen noodles are prepared each day from Texas wheat flour ground in-house. Miso and pickles are fermented on-site.

“As much as we can possibly do ourselves, we do. We even made our own yakitori boards,” Holt says.

The menu includes two ramen dishes, an array of yakitori options, including oyster chicken available with your choice of breast meat, wing, tsukune (a chicken meatball), thigh and knee cartilage, among others.

Standing out on the menu is a 10-mushroom Soboro Don made with spicy, ground king oyster mushrooms with hijiki served with rice. There is also a 36 steak Hamburg made with Texas wagyu, summer truffles, chanterelle mushrooms and sweet potato.

A short cocktail menu is equally impressive. There is a Texas peach sour, Chu-Hai made with lemon or mango and a shiso-mint mojito. A Japanese whiskey highball is the perfect way to round out dinner.

Holt is best known for his time cooking stellar Italian fare at Lucia, the renowned Bishop Arts restaurant. It was there he began indulging his passion cranking out handmade noodles on the kitchen’s pasta machine and testing recipes on co-workers and industry friends.

Holt launched his izakaya pop-up dinners, which became massively popular over the years. Opening Salaryman was the natural next step.

The tiny dining room is likely to fill up fast, and customers can pencil in their names on the wait list on a clipboard by the door, then stroll the neighborhood while they wait for their turn at the table. Salaryman quietly opened this week and is sure to have a full dining room this fall.

Salaryman, 287 N. Bishop Ave. (Bishop Arts). Opens at 6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday.