Rayza’s

Rayza’s sits on US Highway 90 in Daphne, Alabama, a family-owned restaurant built around sushi, steak, and seafood rather than a single narrow concept. The restaurant is run by Chef and owner Mochamad Rayza and his wife Laura, who met while working at a restaurant in Tuscaloosa before relocating to Baldwin County after they married. The couple settled in Daphne with their two children, Graham and Oliver, and between them bring more than twenty years of restaurant industry experience to the business, a personal ownership story that shows up in a menu that mixes traditional sushi with dishes that don’t fit neatly into any one culinary category.

The sushi program forms the core of the restaurant’s identity, with raw preparations and rolls making up a significant share of the menu, and the kitchen will also build custom, off-menu sushi creations for guests who want something outside the printed list. Alongside the raw bar, the kitchen turns out dishes like a Korean corn dip, crispy Brussels sprouts, parmesan truffle fries, and a smash burger topped with pork belly jam in an Asian barbecue sauce, items that reflect a willingness to cross cuisines rather than stay locked into a single style. Certified Angus beef shows up on the steak side of the menu, including a six-ounce filet mignon prepared sous vide and a fourteen-ounce cut for diners who want something heavier than sushi, along with lobster rolls for guests looking for something in between.

That range across sushi, steak, and comfort food gives Rayza’s a broader appeal than a sushi-only restaurant, letting groups with different tastes order from one table without splitting up. The restaurant describes its approach as blending culturally diverse dishes with brave new flavor combinations, and the menu backs that up with items that wouldn’t necessarily show up together on a typical Japanese steakhouse menu, from Korean-influenced appetizers to a burger built more like a Southern sandwich than a sushi bar snack.

Rayza’s runs a happy hour Monday through Wednesday from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., and its regular hours split between lunch and dinner service most days, closing entirely on Sundays. Lunch runs from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., with dinner picking back up at 4:30 p.m. and running until 9 p.m. on weekdays and 9:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. The restaurant sits at 9475 US Highway 90, Suite 210, placing it along Daphne’s commercial corridor near several other independent restaurants, and it offers online ordering through ToastTab, DoorDash, and Uber Eats in addition to dine-in service, reservations, catering, and private parties.

Desserts round out the menu with items like tiramisu paired with ice cream, a departure from the more standard mochi or green tea options found at many sushi restaurants. For Daphne diners looking for a sushi restaurant with a broader menu than the typical roll-and-nigiri format, Rayza’s has built a following on that willingness to mix cuisines rather than stay within one lane, a reflection of the Rayza family’s own path from Tuscaloosa restaurant kitchens to owning their own place on the Eastern Shore.

The restaurant’s suite on US Highway 90 places it along one of Daphne’s other main commercial corridors, distinct from the US-98 strip where several of the city’s other Asian restaurants cluster, giving Rayza’s a bit more separation from direct competitors. With Laura and Chef Rayza both drawing on more than two decades of combined restaurant experience before opening their own place, the menu’s willingness to mix a sushi bar with Certified Angus beef steaks and Southern-leaning comfort dishes like the pork belly smash burger reads less like a gimmick and more like the product of two people who have worked across multiple kitchens and multiple cuisines before settling in Daphne to raise their family and run a restaurant together.