Yakitori Imai is the ideal spot to rest your feet after a long day exploring the town.

With the restaurant’s extensive list of beverages with wines from wineries in Yamanashi, creative flavours like watermelon beer, and more, you can rest assured that you can leisurely enjoy the made-to-order skewers. It feels as though you’re snacking for several hours, but in the end, you’ll discover that you’re pleasantly full when you’re on the thirteenth skewer.

Yakitori Imai is yet another restaurant recommended by my lovely local friend, who told me they had wanted to try the Omakase course at this restaurant for quite some time. I’m glad they chose to bring me along, allowing me to savour the intense, mouth-watering scents of skewers freshly grilled off the charcoal grill.

The restaurant was originally located in Sendagi when it first opened in 2006. On its tenth anniversary, the original location closed, and the restaurant reopened in Gaienmae in 2016. The restaurant’s specialty is grilled chicken Imai, with chicken wings, gizzards, chicken thighs, and more using locally-raised chickens. Alongside their signature grilled chicken, you can also indulge in the fatty juices of French duck, hearty bites of grilled yam, juicy pork belly, and quail eggs.

There’s something that draws me to the intimate and social dining atmosphere of a Yakitori restaurant, where everyone is gathered around a central bar, breathing in the mouth-watering aromas of the charcoal grill, raising a glass to friends, and indulging in the piping hot bite-sized delicacies placed on their plates fresh off the grill. The friendly server, who spoke fluent English and engaged in friendly banter, made our meal all the more enjoyable.

The menu is reasonably priced, and you can enjoy the intimate atmosphere of catching up with friends at the 30-seat counter with skewers starting from 300 yen. We wanted to try everything on the menu, so we went for the Omakase course at 9,500 yen.

I would recommend the Omakase course if you’re hungry after a day of activities. As you’re enjoying your drink, the skewers are set on your plate fresh off the charcoal grill. The joy of sipping on an ice cold drink paired with hot skewers was just what we needed. The server kept replacing the finished skewers with more, and there came a point when both my camera and my appetite couldn’t keep up.

I lost track of how many skewers we had as part of the course after the sixth skewer, and I started getting full. After a few drinks and several more skewers, the server placed a bowl of mushroom noodles in front of us and told us our skewer course was completed. I barely had room in my stomach to consume more carbohydrates, but I couldn’t refuse the flavourful broth and ended up finishing the entire bowl. Our Omakase course's perfectly sweet end note was a small dorayaki ice cream sandwich.

My highlights from the menu would be the roasted tomato because the grill brought out the tangy yet sweet juices of the tomato and also softened its texture. The appetizer salad was also something I kept picking at because of how it awakened my appetite and taste buds with just the right amount of tartness to make one salivate. The French duck, with its fatty skin and pork belly, with its multi-layers of fat, was also a highlight. The crispiness of the chicken wing and the juices trapped inside the skin are the perfect pairing for a beer.

If you have Tokyo on your travel itinerary this year, you would want to make a booking to experience this innovative menu and food service yourself. I promise you won’t regret it.

VISIT

Yakitori Imai

Japan, 〒150-0001 Tokyo, Shibuya City, Jingumae, 3 Chome−42−11 102

+81 70-8397-7655

Photography by Florence Leung