There are dinners where you sit down, order your food and wait.
And then there’s teppanyaki.
At Hana Japan Steak and Seafood and Hana Japan Steak House, dinner happens right in front of you: the grill heats up, your chef takes over the table, and steak, seafood and vegetables are cooked just a few feet from your seat.
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The family-run Bay Area restaurant has been serving guests since 1978, with locations at the Berkeley Marina and in Dublin. Its menu centers around traditional teppanyaki dining, but with a particular focus on premium beef—including Black Angus cuts and steak dry-aged in-house.
If it’s your first Hana Japan visit, here's where we'd start.
Start With the Filet Mignon
If steak is the reason you came, the Filet Mignon is an easy first choice.
Hana's hibachi entrees come with Hana soup, house salad, hibachi vegetables and steamed rice, so you're getting the full teppanyaki meal rather than ordering the steak on its own.
Filet is also a great introduction to the restaurant's emphasis on beef without immediately jumping to one of the larger combination meals.
Best for: steak lovers and anyone who wants the classic Hana experience.
If You Can't Decide: Filet Mignon & Jumbo Shrimp
This is probably where we'd send most first-timers.
The Filet Mignon & Jumbo Shrimp combination gives you both sides of the teppanyaki experience: steak from the grill and seafood cooked alongside it.
Hana offers several steak-and-seafood pairings, but filet and shrimp is one of those combinations that doesn't require much overthinking.
Best for: first visits, date nights and anyone who wants a little of everything without ordering the entire menu.
For the Steak Person: Dry Aged Ribeye
This is where Hana gets especially interesting.
The restaurant dry-ages select cuts of steak in-house, a process designed to concentrate flavor and create greater tenderness. Hana's current menu includes a Dry Aged Ribeye as both a standalone entree and in several combinations with seafood.
If filet is the safer introduction, ribeye is the order for someone who wants a steak with more richness and character.
Best for: serious steak people.
For Seafood Lovers: Lobster Tail & Jumbo Shrimp
You don't have to order steak at a Japanese steakhouse.
Hana's Cold Water Lobster Tail & Jumbo Shrimp combination is the move for someone who wants to stay entirely on the seafood side of the grill.
The menu also includes salmon, scallops and standalone jumbo shrimp, making Hana surprisingly easy to navigate even if beef isn't your thing.
Best for: seafood lovers or celebrations where you want the meal to feel a little more indulgent.
Going With a Group? Get the Hana Hibachi Trio
Teppanyaki already works particularly well for groups because the meal is communal—the restaurant's hibachi tables are designed around shared seating and live cooking.
For the person who wants maximum variety, the Hana Hibachi Trio combines jumbo shrimp, white meat chicken and salmon filet.
It's also the kind of order that captures why teppanyaki is fun in the first place. Instead of committing to a single protein, you're watching several dishes come together across the grill.
Best for: group dinners, celebrations and indecisive people.
Don't Skip the Fried Rice
Your entree includes steamed rice, but we'd upgrade.
Hana offers vegetable, chicken and shrimp fried rice, and teppanyaki fried rice is one of those dishes where watching it come together on the grill is almost as important as eating it.
If you're already committing to the full hibachi experience, this isn't where we'd save room.
Our pick: chicken or shrimp fried rice.
Add the Garlic Butter
Sometimes the smallest line on a menu deserves more attention.
Hana offers its housemade garlic butter as a side or add-on, and if you're building a steak-heavy meal, it's exactly the kind of extra worth having at the table.
You don't need much explanation here.
Steak. Garlic. Butter.
We're in.
Leave Room for the Pineapple Boat
Hana keeps dessert fairly simple, with ice cream, cheesecake and a Pineapple Boat currently on the menu.
After an entire teppanyaki dinner, simple isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Best for: sharing at the end of the table.
So, What Should You Order?
If it's your first visit, we'd build the meal like this:
Filet Mignon & Jumbo Shrimp for your entree.
Chicken or shrimp fried rice instead of steamed rice.
Housemade garlic butter on the side.
And if you still have room, finish with the Pineapple Boat.
If you're more interested in steak, upgrade your night around the Dry Aged Ribeye. If seafood is your thing, go straight for Lobster Tail & Jumbo Shrimp.
Cravings Take
Hana Japan isn't really the kind of restaurant where you come only for what's on the plate.
That's the point.
You're coming for the chef at the center of the table, the sound of the grill, dinner being cooked in front of you and the kind of shared meal that works just as well for a birthday as it does for an ordinary night when you want dinner to feel like something more.
After nearly five decades in the Bay Area, Hana has built its identity around that experience while continuing to put particular attention into the ingredients hitting the grill.
Hana Japan has two Bay Area locations: Berkeley Marina at 235 University Avenue in Berkeley and 7298 San Ramon Road in Dublin. Teppanyaki dining is currently offered daily from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.
