Yoroniku

Located in the heart of Tokyo, in the basement of a building in glitzy Minami-Aoyama, is a meat-lover’s paradise. Carnivores from not only Japan but all around the world seek out a table at Yoroniku. Its calm, classy atmosphere is casual and flexible enough to suit any sort of occasion, from romantic anniversary dinners to birthday celebrations. Excellent yakiniku is not exactly hard to find in Japan, so why is Yoroniku so special? The answer? Yoroniku was the first. Not the first yakiniku restaurant, of course, but it is widely credited with popularising the style of eating yakiniku by dipping the grilled beef in egg yolk and eating it with rice. This is so commonplace now it seems hard to imagine yakiniku eaten any other way, but many regulars still swear that Yoroniku still does this style best, after all these years. Still, most guests are here for the "secret" menu, which includes offerings like gyukatsu (breaded steak cutlet) that's made from a chuck of wagyu grilled on a hot plate right in front of guests. But the greatest irony is that the most popular item in the restaurant comes from the secret menu: the "silk loin," which is an extremely finely marbled cut of wagyu beef loin, sliced paper-thin and absolutely bursting with umami. Unlike some yakiniku restaurants that deliberately keep their seating numbers as small as possible to artificially enhance the sense of exclusivity, Yoroniku has a whopping 80 seats. Yet the restaurant is still full almost every day of the week — there's no guarantee that guests will secure a reservation the week of, let alone the day, so reservations far in advance are highly recommended. Nonetheless, guests who can't shouldn't despair: the Yoroniku empire has expanded so drastically that there are other outlets in the form of Ebisu Yoroniku, Yoroniku Tokyo Azabudai Hills, and even its spin-off shops Namaiki and Akasaka Misuji, where there is bound to be a seat at at least one of them. Still, there's nothing quite like the original.