Eric Kim Is Taking Las Vegas's Most Expensive Omakase Into a Casino Food Hall

Yu Or Mi Sushi closed inside Durango Casino & Resort on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Station Casinos announced what takes its place in the Eat Your Heart Out food hall: Sushi Kame, a new restaurant from Eric Kim, the chef behind Kame Omakase in Chinatown — the counter that runs the most expensive omakase in Las Vegas. It opens in early 2027.

A food hall is not where a chef like Kim usually lands. His Chinatown room seats ten people at a time, takes reservations only, and charges $500 a head for its top menu. Durango's hall runs on communal tables and counter lines.

Three rooms in one stall

Sushi Kame is really three formats under one name. Up front, a casual Hand Roll Bar: hand rolls of salmon, tuna, yellowtail, toro, snow crab and lobster claw, with chef's-choice omakase options. Behind it, a main dining room serving sushi and sashimi combinations, donburi, and hot dishes — Maine Lobster Uni Pasta, A5 Wagyu Ishiyaki, A5 Wagyu Sukiyaki. At the back, a traditional sushi bar pouring an à la carte line of bluefin tuna, otoro, Japanese snapper, Hokkaido premium uni, Japanese scallop and live Maine lobster sashimi. A happy hour is planned as well.

The swap itself is quick. Yu Or Mi, one of the hall's original tenants, closed on November 10 — Casino.org's timeline — and Kim's crew takes the space for the early-2027 opening.

The $500 counter he is coming from

Kame Omakase sits at 3616 Spring Mountain Road, in the Lotus building at the edge of Chinatown. Ten seats. Two seatings a night — 6:30 and 8:30 — two hours each, reservation only. There is no menu to study in advance. The fish comes from Japan's Toyosu Market, flown in three times a week, and Kim builds the night around what arrived.

The regular omakase runs $350 a person. The signature runs $500, before tax and gratuity — the restaurant's own booking page states the number plainly — and its progression, per the house menu, moves from chawanmushi through a course the kitchen calls the Jewelry Box, then Hokkaido scallop with toro, uni and caviar, A5 wagyu nabeyaki and uni pasta. Tasting Table counted Kame among the twelve most expensive sushi restaurants in America. The local verdict is blunter: Restaurants for Kings calls it the most expensive dedicated sushi room in the city, and Neon Feast calls Kim's the best and priciest omakase off the Strip.

This summer, the inspectors weighed in. When the Michelin Guide returned to Las Vegas in August — its first look at the city since 2009 — Kame Omakase entered the inaugural Southwest guide as a Recommended restaurant, one of seventeen in the city given that standing. Recommended is not a star. It is the guide's word that a room belongs in the serious conversation, and Kim's room earned it in the first year Michelin bothered to look.

Twenty-eight years to a food hall

Kim's own count of his Las Vegas life runs past twenty-eight years. Kame started small — an eight-seat omakase speakeasy on the west side of town — before the move to the Lotus building gave it a room that matched the cooking. "For over 28 years, my journey in Las Vegas has been about more than just great food," Kim said in the announcement, promising "the same philosophy in a more relaxed and welcoming atmosphere" at Durango.

Durango's general manager, David Horn, framed the hire from the house side: talented local chefs are the point, and Kim's arrival is "a premium culinary experience" joining the hall. The words are standard announcement language. The résumé behind them is not.

Why a locals casino is spending like this

Durango opened in December 2023 as Station Casinos' newest resort, at the 215 Beltway and Durango Drive, in one of the valley's fastest-growing residential corners. Its food hall launched with eleven vendors, stocked with outposts from Los Angeles and New York next to local favorites. The churn has already begun — Uncle Paulie's closed in September, Yu Or Mi and the hall's Vesta Coffee closed this week, and Los Angeles import Villa's Tacos moved in back in August.

The bigger money is rising next door. The North expansion was announced at $385 million: 275,000 square feet, roughly 400 more slot machines, a 36-lane bowling alley, luxury movie theaters. On Red Rock Resorts' earnings call this month, the budget climbed to about $430 million, the scope widened to a bingo room, a keno lounge and more dining, and the opening target settled on the third quarter of 2027. Management repeats one line about the property: Durango keeps growing the Las Vegas locals market, powered by the rooftops going up across the southwest valley.

In a $430 million expansion, a food-hall tenant is the cheapest line item on the page — and the one carrying the argument. Bowling lanes and slot machines do not make a locals casino feel like a destination. A Michelin-listed chef working a stall his regulars can actually get into might.

What is missing, for now, is a menu with prices. Sushi Kame has published none, and early 2027 is as precise as the opening date gets. The questions wait for the opening: whether the hand-roll line keeps the discipline of a counter that built its name on scarcity, and what a Kim hand roll costs when it is not part of a $500 night. The stall is already his.