Kenzie Motai and chef Shingo Akikuni. Courtesy Salar Abduaziz

Michelin-starred Coral Gables destination Shingo is a 14-seat restaurant with $275 seasonal tasting menus and an interior that was built in Kyoto before being disassembled, shipped and rebuilt at its final destination in Florida. Shingo, which specializes in omakase featuring ultra-premium nigiri and signature items like eel with caviar, is perched at the pinnacle of Japanese fine dining in Miami. 

But for their next restaurant, chef Shingo Akikuni and partner Kenzie Motai are aiming for something much more approachable. Stand, which will debut its daytime service in Coral Gables on Thursday, June 4, is a 24-seat café focusing on sandos, bento boxes and shio pan alongside matcha and coffee.

“When you grow up in Japan, café culture is so big, and those bakeries are in every neighborhood,” Motai, who was born in Tokyo, tells Observer. “I grew up going to bakeries. And in every kind of Japanese household, you have shokupan, Japanese milk bread, inside the house.”

For Motai and the Osaka-born Akikuni, Stand is about going back to their roots and the food they enjoy eating day after day.

Stand will open for daytime service in Coral Gables on Thursday, June 4. Courtesy Salar Abduaziz

“It’s always been part of us,” Motai says of his and Akikuni’s love for Japanese cafés. “We were trained in fine dining, but, as people, we’re fairly casual. We wanted to create something that was more accessible. Shingo is expensive and not necessarily a concept that you can go to every single night. So our goal is to continue to create more Japanese food concepts and introduce more Japanese food and our culture to the people in Miami. We just celebrated three years of Shingo. And for a couple years now, we’ve been talking about creating a nice neighborhood spot where we could have sandos and onigiri and bento for lunch.”

Stand, which will also have its own private-label matcha from Japan and private-label coffee from Guatemala, while offering specialty drinks like matcha with strawberry puree, is inspired by both Japan’s kissaten culture and its convenience-store fare. But this new restaurant is, of course, taking a chef-driven approach to its everyday food. 

Stand has its own private label matcha. Courtesy Salar Abduaziz

Chef de cuisine Lania Andrade, who was most recently Shingo’s pastry chef, is leading a team that’s baking its shokupan in-house. R&D for the milk bread was an arduous process. Andrade, Akikuni and Motai traveled to Japan last summer and tasted different shokupan. Motai, who spent the latter part of his childhood in New Jersey, also got some help from his parents.

“I had them ship shokupan from a café that I grew up with,” he says. “In New Jersey and in New York, there are a lot of Japanese people and Japanese bakeries and cafés. There is something very authentic there as well.”

After six months of testing to perfect Stand’s pillowy milk bread, Motai is convinced that Stand’s shokupan is just as authentic. The shokupan at Stand is the foundation of sandos filled with egg salad, chicken katsu, wagyu and other options. The café also has toasts topped with flavors like pizza and sweet potato. 

Stand’s shio pan. Courtesy Salar Abduaziz

And Stand is using the same dough for grab-and-go shio pan (buttery salt bread) with options including chocolate, sausage and curry.

“Curry is such a staple in Japanese households, and curry pan is something that I probably ate every single day growing up,” Motai says.

Beyond Stand’s grab-and-go options, which also include onigiri, the restaurant offers made-to-order sandos, salads and bento boxes (with seasonal proteins, sides, rice and miso soup). Stand is keeping things accessible with shio pan that starts at $3.50, sandos that start at $12 and bentos available for less than $20.  

The egg salad sandos at Stand. Courtesy Salar Abduaziz

“It seems like interest in Japanese food is at an all-time high,” Motai says. “We feel a responsibility to give people the most authentic experience. We’re really excited and happy to be able to share that cuisine in an approachable and affordable way. We feel like we’re kind of Japanese ambassadors here in Miami. It’s about having those authentic products that we grew up with and really enjoy eating every single day.”

Stand is starting off as a walk-in daytime destination. The space will add dinner service, with reservations available, in the fall. That will be in the form of a dimly lit izakaya with a to-be-determined menu, which might include Japanese staples like karaage and ramen paired with sake, beer and wine.

The café offers sandos and toasts topped with flavors like pizza and sweet potato. Courtesy Salar Abduaziz

“We’re bringing in a chef from Japan for the nighttime concept,” Motai says. “I think the izakaya allows us to explore a lot of different types of food. And if something sticks out and it becomes really popular, we might look at that and say, ‘Hey, maybe we should open something based on that.’”

Stand is located at 98 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables, FL 33134, and will be open daily from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.