A Two-Week Phone Call in Japanese for a Seat at the Horseshoe
A modern yakitori counter in Jingumae where a second grill for vegetables and a natural wine list have rewritten what the format can do — if you can get someone to place the call.
The chicken thigh comes off the charcoal at the exact moment the fat has rendered but before the skin has tightened, and it is set down on the counter without ceremony. A pause. The next skewer is already turning. On the second grill, a whole leek is blackening under the same care that most yakitori counters reserve for their prized cuts of chicken. This is the tell — that a vegetable is being cooked with the same seriousness as the bird.
Takashi Imai's counter in Jingumae seats thirty around a horseshoe that opens onto two charcoal pits, and the room reorganises what a yakitori restaurant is supposed to feel like. Skewers of chicken are the spine. But French pigeon turns up in the progression, duck and quail rotate through, and the wine list runs to natural bottles that no traditional yakitoriya in the city would recognise. It is not a rebellion against the format. It is the format done by someone who thinks the format has more range than it has been given.
A yakitori counter where the vegetables get their own fire and the wine list runs natural — the format finally treated as cooking, not ritual.
Editorial Deep
By the end of the omakase the counter in front of each guest looks the same: a small pile of bamboo stripped clean, a wine glass with a finger of something orange still in it, and a plate that held a caramelised sake dessert until a minute ago. What is not on the counter is the vegetable course, which most diners will have eaten in full and asked about afterwards. This is the surprise. A yakitori kitchen where the leeks, the corn in season, the mushrooms held to the charcoal on the second grill are not padding between the chicken but the reason to come back a second time.
The counter is a horseshoe of pale wood wrapped around the two charcoal pits, and the seat that matters is anywhere on the curve where both grills are in your sightline. Overhead lighting is low and directed onto the cooking surface rather than the diners, so the room reads as the fires plus the reflections off the wood, with the guests in comfortable half-shadow. The extractor is doing serious work — thirty seats around live charcoal should smell more than this does — and clothes come out clean.
Before anything else, decide who is placing the call. Reservations at Imai are by phone, in Japanese, one to four weeks out — there is no Tock, no Resy, no OpenTable page to open. If you do not speak Japanese, the working move is a hotel concierge at the property you are staying at, or a paid booking service; the OMAKASE JapanEatinerary listing (omakaseje.com) carries some inventory in English and is the cleanest workaround if the concierge route is not open to you. Every guest in the party must order a course, and a cancellation fee applies after 1 PM on the day of the booking, so treat the reservation as committed once it is made.
A meaningful slice of this bill is not chicken. It is the second grill running vegetables in parallel, the natural wine list that a yakitori room has no obligation to keep, the extractor pulling smoke off thirty covers so clothes come out clean, and the pigeon and duck that turn up alongside the shamo. Strip those out and the meal is a very good chicken counter at a fair price.
Bring the person who has eaten enough yakitori in Tokyo to know what the format usually is, and who will notice that the leeks and the mushrooms are being cooked with the same care as the thigh. Bring the friend who drinks natural wine and has never been able to pair it with charcoal-grilled chicken. Do not bring the traditionalist who wants a smoky counter in an alley off Shinbashi with a bottle of Sapporo and twelve chicken skewers in order — that is a different restaurant, and Toriki or the yokocho will serve them better.
What to eat
Don't miss.
The omakase with a glass of natural wine, and do not skip the vegetable skewers off the second grill
“The yakitori counter that finally treats vegetables and wine as cooking, not decoration.”
Go for the format Imai has built — two grills, natural wine, seasonal vegetables cooked with the same intent as the chicken. Skip if you want the traditional smoky-alley yakitori experience; Toriki in Musashi-Koyama is the sharper single-line counter and the easier booking.
The Verdict
