If there is one thing that Flagship Restaurant Group is good at, it is creating spaces where people love to hang out.
I have lots of memories tied to Flagship dining rooms, all the way back to when I first visited the original Blue Sushi location in west Omaha. Twenty-four years ago, when it opened in 2002, it wasn’t just a sushi joint. It was a place where 20-somethings like me — or people who I wanted to be — got dressed up and hung out to see and be seen. To feel cool.
We ate a few Crunchy Blue rolls alongside our Cosmopolitans, of course, but those rolls were only a small part of the point.
Fast forward to 2026. The third time we dined at Anthem, which opened earlier this year at 12th and Howard in the old Plank location, we saw a 20-something couple sitting across the bar from us, sipping cocktails, hanging out, and, well, really reminding me of who I once was.
Did they eat? Sure. Is that why they were there? Not really.
Anthem is the latest of the downtown Flagship concepts that feels like it’s more about the mood than the menu. Some of the dishes on the list, a mashup they call “Tex-Asian fusion,” work. Some don’t.
Frankly, I’m not sure it matters all that much.
Anthem is undeniably beautiful, from the outside in. It sits on one of the Old Market’s busiest corners, attempting to emulate its sister location on the hip Rainey Street in Austin, Texas.
Groovy patio benches and italicized green signage draw folks toward its door.
Inside, the space has the same big bar at the east corner and more traditional seating to the west like Plank did. But gone are the seafood concept’s giant boat suspended from the ceiling, mariner-focused details and the blue and orange color scheme. It’s been updated to a softer, warmer room with golden wood, subtle sage green paint and diffused lighting.
The space is still loud and lively, but the whole experience feels chill, befitting the younger, hipper dining audience – or at least the dining vibe – that Anthem seeks. The successful Clio, another Flagship hit across the street, uses a similar playbook.
Anthem is less of a nightclub than the Flagship of my youth, now more suitable for a leisurely brunch. Less bling ring, more quiet luxury. The kids have changed. Flagship has, quite smartly, changed along with them.
I’d like to have talked to Flagship about their choices in this room, and on the menu, which I’ll get into momentarily, but after making several requests for an interview via emails to one of the owners and three members of the public relations team, the team told me via email that they were “going to pass.”
I let them know that I’d write the review anyway and asked why they turned me down. No one responded. It’s not the first time a restaurant has refused to speak with me, but it’s the first time Flagship has in more than 15 years of writing about their restaurants. Frustrating.
Let’s get into the food.
The most fun dish to eat, and the one that takes up the most menu real estate, is the pupu platter. A revival from the 1950s, pupu platters certainly pre-date most of the folks dining at Anthem, myself included. The concept comes from Polynesian and Hawaiian “pupu,” or “snack” culture. Flagship’s version is a clever reboot of the Americanized Chinese plate in two versions that holds onto some of the classics, which include dishes like egg rolls, teriyaki, ribs and chicken wings.
We tried the $40 “cheat code,” which comes piled on a wooden lazy Susan, each compartment filled with a different hot appetizer: Thai curry fries, tiny two-bite tuna tacos, flautas drizzled with crema and cheese, spicy fried macaroni and cheese balls and classic crab rangoon. As the Gen Z diners seated at the bar might say, every single one of these small bites hit.
The friends we dined with that evening most liked the hot taquitos, which were fried to perfection, and the macaroni and cheese, which even after being breaded and fried had plenty of cheesy, spicy flavor. The crab rangoon, too, was good, with actual chunks of crab inside as opposed to the mostly cream cheese versions you will find elsewhere. Thick steak fries with a hint of spice were piping hot, and were nice dipped in an accompanying bowl of mayo topped with chili crisp.
There’s several other easy-to-like crowd pleasers across the appetizer menu, like hatch chile queso served with a mountain of lightly curry spiced chips and a verdant edamame hummus with a zippy chili crisp on the top paired with a pile of fresh, cool vegetables and more chips. The fusion idea behind the menu works here, with light Asian touches on top of Americanized Mexican cuisine.
The menu includes lots of original cocktails, including the Cheech and Chong, a spicy margarita topped with a charred shishito pepper that can be made with the diner’s choice of tequila or mezcal. The bloody Mary comes with the option to add a skewer of crab rangoon and a jalapeno macaroni and cheese ball as garnish.
Probably most popular, at least from what I saw, is their version of an espresso martini made with coffee and coconut and finished with a pale purple cold foam made with ube, a yam native to the Philippines.
I tried both burgers on the menu, with high expectations: I love the burger at Memoir, another Flagship spot downtown, and I also love its Pyro burger, served at a concept in Scottsdale.
The Anthem smash burger is the better of the two, served with pickles, kewpie mayo, onion and American cheese on a soft bun. It is exactly what you expect of a modern smash burger, complete with thin, lacy-edged patties and melted cheese. I’d already tried the fries, so I opted for a side salad, which was nice. It arrived fresh and crisp, drizzled with a tasty Thai peanut vinaigrette.
The pickled jalapeños and habanero aioli on the menu’s other burger are generously applied, so much so that they were all I tasted. The meat along with the other toppings – queso, crispy shallots – disappeared under a thick layer of heat and not much else.
That theme continued through many of the other dishes.
A fried rice omelet topped with Oaxacan cheese on the brunch menu is unbalanced. The cheese overpowered not just the eggs but the rice, too, and the kitchen could use a lighter hand with the cheese, because the dish has the bones of something interesting.
Sugary hoisin sauce dominates the flavor of the sticky ribs, which arrived at our table without much nuance. They also arrived without heat – these ribs were served to us lukewarm.
Our dining group debated the shrimp noodles. I liked them, but my friend found them both one-note and too salty. I tried them again on our third visit, and found them salty then, too, though I do like the nicely cooked shrimp and the cool touches of fresh herbs and cabbage scattered through the bowl. If slightly recalibrated, this dish could be better, too.
The shrimp tacos are fine-ish, topped with corn, cilantro, cabbage, avocado and a Korean aioli. And while the cheese-enveloped take on birria tacos are probably a crowd pleaser, I found them greasy and over the top. That’s saying something, since I generally love birria, a slow-cooked, wonderfully flavorful dish. Here, the outer side of the tortilla shell is coated in a thick layer of cheese that was fried to a dark brown. I think it’s too much.
Anthem is a fun place to be. It feels special, and that makes it feel exciting. The team deserves credit: They can design a gorgeous room, light it in a flattering way, pepper it with fun details, play the right music and pack the house. They have done it for more than two decades to overwhelming success.
But Anthem’s menu feels unrefined. The mix of Tex-Mex and Asian doesn’t quite come together, instead relying on heavy-handed, one-note flavors that don’t do justice to either Mexican or Asian cuisine. For better or worse, the food here is a bit of an afterthought.
My friend, I think, nailed it the second night, halfway through dinner.
“The vibes,” she said, “are the highlight.”
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