Toshihiro Wada's Basement Counter Under Jiro
A yakitori counter in a Ginza basement, starred in the 2026 Tokyo Michelin guide, where the chicken oyster, the liver pâté, and a serious wine list rewrite what a skewer restaurant can be.
The chicken oyster arrives on a skewer no longer than a finger, two small nuggets of dark meat from the hollow of the thigh that most butchers throw away. Toshihiro Wada slides it across the counter with the calm of a man who has spent decades convincing diners that the parts of the bird they didn't know existed are the parts that justify a flight of subway stairs. The salt is barely there. The char is exact. It tastes like the argument for the whole restaurant in three bites.
Bird Land occupies the basement of the Tsukamoto Sozan Building on Ginza's 4-chome block, one flight down from street level, sharing the floor with Sukiyabashi Jiro. Wada has held a Michelin star here since 2010, and the 2026 guide keeps it. What he does with yakitori — a format that in most rooms means salt, tare, and a beer — is closer to what a kaiseki chef does with a season: a set-menu progression through cuts most yakitori-ya never bother with, poured against a wine list that would embarrass some of the French rooms upstairs.
Wada takes the parts of the chicken other cooks discard and makes them the reason to book a basement in Ginza.
Editorial Deep
Wada works the whole bird and the format is the point. A set menu moves through skewers most yakitori counters don't bother listing — the oyster from the thigh hollow, the tail, the soft cartilage — punctuated by two dishes that don't behave like yakitori at all: a house-made chicken liver pâté served early, dense and cool against the heat coming off the grill, and an oyakodon at the close, chicken and just-set egg over rice that answers the question of what to eat last. A grilled cheese course sits in the middle as a genuine surprise, more clever than the format usually allows. The chicken grilled in pepper is the muscular counterpoint to the delicate cuts. What the kitchen leaves alone is the tare-heavy, sauce-forward end of the yakitori spectrum — this is a salt-and-restraint room.
The crowd is older, quieter, and dressed for Ginza rather than for a yakitori-ya. Couples in their fifties in jackets, a table of two men working through the wine list, a solo diner at the counter with a notebook — the demographic that treats a star rating as a working recommendation rather than an occasion. Nobody is loud. The 5pm opening pulls a slightly different room than the later seating; the second turn skews to businessmen who have just come off the Ginza Line.
Finding the door is the first job. Bird Land is B1F of the Tsukamoto Sozan Building on the 4-chome block of Ginza, one minute from Ginza Station Exit C6, and the entrance is a staircase down from the street that reads like a service entrance until you're on it. The basement holds Sukiyabashi Jiro alongside it; if you time it right you'll pass Jiro's frontage on the way in, which is the small unadvertised bonus of eating here. Once through the door you're greeted, walked the short distance to the counter, and handed a menu with English support — the staff are used to foreign diners and it shows in the pacing.
The trap is the shorter course. Book the longer course or don't bother. The wine list rewards spending: this is one of the few yakitori rooms in the city where a mid-range Burgundy arrives in proper stemware, and skipping it to drink beer leaves half of what the room does on the table.
The circumstance that would bring a Considered Traveler back is a Ginza night that already involves a serious bottle — an anniversary dinner where the wine matters as much as the food, a work evening where a client wants to eat well without sitting through a three-hour French tasting, a first night in Tokyo where the 5pm opening solves the jetlag problem the later kaiseki rooms don't. On a return the play is to lean harder into the wine list, ask for the skewers Wada is running that week that aren't on the standard course, and skip the beer entirely. That is a different meal from the first visit and a better one.
What to eat
Don't miss.
The full omakase — chicken liver pâté, chicken oyster skewer, chicken grilled in pepper, grilled cheese, and the closing oyakodon
“Wada's basement counter is the yakitori room for people who love wine as much as chicken.”
Book the longer omakase and drink from the list — a shorter course or a beer-only evening misses what makes this room different from Torishiki or Toriki, which do purist yakitori better for less money.
The Verdict
