Not all business ideas are born from a carefully planned strategy. Some emerge almost by accident: from a personal experience, a conversation, or something as simple as trying something for the first time. For brothers Juan and Borja Molina-Martell, that spark came from a simple sushi dish they shared in London, which sparked their passion for Japanese cuisine. At the time, both were in their early twenties and had little experience in hospitality, beyond Borja’s summers spent working at his aunt’s rice and seafood restaurant in Mojácar.
Almost without realizing it, they had discovered a cuisine that would go on to shape their careers. With financial backing from their father, they opened Nomo Gràcia in 2007, when Japanese cuisine was still relatively uncommon in Barcelona. Almost two decades later, that first restaurant has grown into Grup Nomo, with nearly 300 employees, a dozen establishments across Barcelona, Girona, the Costa Brava, Madrid, and Andorra, and annual turnover expected to exceed €20 million this year. Now, that same passion for Japan has given rise to Nimi, a new concept within Grup Nomo that, rather than returning to the sushi that first captivated them, focuses on a more informal style of Japanese cuisine: sandos —Japanese sandwiches—, okonomiyaki, sweets, matcha drinks, and other offerings inspired by Japan’s small neighbourhood taverns and street food.
The name of the new concept already reflects its philosophy: a kind of younger sibling that shares Nomo’s roots, philosophy, and much of the knowledge accumulated over the past two decades, while deliberately taking a different path. The concept was created precisely to make room for everything that does not fit within Nomo.
The first Nimi will open this Thursday, October 8, at Pau Claris, 107. It will be a more informal Japanese Bar, with an average ticket of about 22 euros, compared to the 40 or 50 euros —or even more— that Nomo's establishments can reach. It will open from eight in the morning until midnight and will offer a menu in which sushi gives way to other proposals inspired by Japanese street food.
From trips to Japan to Nimi's table
But the differences with Nomo will not be limited to the average ticket or the format. Nimi will have its own menu, developed from scratch together with Naoyuki Haginoya, executive chef and partner of Grup Nomo since its inception, and will be led by Hisanori Matsuki, at the helm of the new concept.
However, although the menu is new, the idea for Nimi has been brewing for about two years. Recurring trips to Japan gradually expanded the recipes that, for one reason or another, didn't quite fit into Nomo. “Every year we travel to Japan, we discover new places and enjoy all kinds of restaurants, from small neighborhood taverns to Michelin-starred restaurants. There are recipes and formats that have fascinated us for years, that we had in the pipeline and that we wanted to put into practice. Nimi allows us, precisely, to give them that space,” explains Borja Molina-Martell, co-founder and CEO of Grup Nomo, to The New Barcelona Post.
With the concept already defined, it was time to find it its own space. The search for the right location —in a central spot with enough traffic from both local people and tourists— lasted for months. Then came the renovation, which has lasted almost a year and has involved an investment of 250,000 euros. The project, led by Mas-Aqui Arquitectura & Interiorismo, moves away from the more conventional image of a Japanese restaurant: without clichés or obvious decorative elements, Nimi opts for a small space, with about thirty seated diners and a bar from which to observe the gastronomic creations. Wood, concrete, brass, and white brick are combined in an interior designed to escape fleeting trends and maintain its own aesthetic over time.
To create the menu, they largely followed the same method that Borja Molina-Martell explained in an interview with The New Barcelona Post and which hangs in Nomo's offices as a kind of roadmap: the PACO method, an acronym for Passion, Learning, Quality, and Obtaining Results. A philosophy that also translates to Nimi's kitchen: to arrive at the six sandos that finally make up the menu, the team tried around 200 versions.
Although it may seem like a simple elaboration at first glance, Molina-Martell insists that the key is in the product and in knowing how to give it prominence. "In this type of dish you can put many ingredients, but for us the important thing is that there is a protagonist product, that it is recognizable and of the highest quality. Everything else must accompany and enhance it, never cover it," he explains.
The result is a menu that starts from Japanese references and techniques, but also incorporates a local perspective. Nimi does not intend to literally reproduce Japan, but rather to adapt this inspiration to the product and the taste of the local consumer. Among the six sandos there are proposals such as ebi xili, with tempura prawns, lettuce, hard-boiled egg and slightly spicy pink sauce; the wagyu, with teriyaki and Japanese mayonnaise; or the panko-breaded loin, with red cabbage and tonkatsu sauce. The same philosophy extends to the rest of the menu, with okonomiyakis —which recovers a recipe that was part of Nomo's first menu—, gyozas and other dishes that combine Japanese techniques with local products.
The menu will also not be tied to a single time of day. Nimi is born with the idea of adapting to different rhythms and occasions, from breakfast to dinner, also including quick and casual meals. For breakfast, there will be options such as Japanese bread, cookies, as well as coffee and different preparations of matcha or ube, a drink based on ube paste, a Filipino tuber with a characteristic purple color. The offer is completed with sweets available throughout the day, such as hojicha cheesecake with Fonteta curd or cream, strawberry and mascarpone sando.
The way the menu is built also responds to a way of understanding catering that Grupo Nomo has maintained since its beginnings: starting from what they like, but then putting themselves in the customer's shoes. "I believe that Nomo's success is that we first do what we are passionate about, but we think like customers," explains Borja. "When we set up the first Nomo, our motto was: we will do what we would like to find as customers." A philosophy they maintain to this day: the brothers and the management team regularly eat in their own restaurants and try the proposals as customers before analyzing them from a business perspective.
Japanese cuisine, twenty years later
Customers who have also been changing since those first Nomo tables in 2007, when gastronomy still had an exotic component and mainly attracted a well-traveled public, already familiar with this type of cuisine. Two decades later, not only has sushi become commonplace: Japanese culture has become increasingly present in Barcelona, from gastronomy to new products, drinks, and ways of eating. “My children are three years old and regularly eat sashimi and sushi. For them, it’s completely normal; twenty years ago, it would have been unthinkable for them to eat raw fish,” explains Molina-Martell.
This familiarity has also expanded the occasions and formats in which Japanese cuisine is consumed. It no longer has to be a special meal or tied to a restaurant: it can be breakfast, a quick lunch, a snack between meals, or a home delivery order. In fact, Grup Nomo has been working on delivery for fifteen years, when it was not yet such a widespread habit, and launched Nomomoto, its home delivery service. Today, this channel represents around 20% of Nomo's business, and Nimi incorporates it from the beginning, combining restaurant, take away, and home delivery.