A reservation at @sendaiokagesan may come with the disclaimers and asides that read like ground rules for entering a celebrity’s hotel suite. It’s not personal. Nor is it unreasonable: if you douse yourself in Santal 33 while I’m knee-deep in the cartilage of a singular Takasaka bird that has given up its life so I can hunt for tertiary notes of char and funk, I’d banish you, too.

But this critic is semi-new to the serious yakitori game, eager to take on the full-bore, nose-to-tail expression of the terrific chicken promised by the chef, Sato Yoshimasa. Having planned a week-long trip to Tokyo around a single reservation at this Shokunin’s nine-seat perch, all I could think about on my two-hour Shinkansen journey there were the dangers that lay ahead: raw chicken and the barrage of smoke that would make my eyes water.

That raw chicken, though: three rosy, semi-translucent fillets, draped like thick handkerchiefs, over a pool of grassy olive oil, tasting (very) alive and sweet, not unlike yellowtail; its fatty liver in another course, almost like foie gras, except it’s both rich and clean; then, soy-cured tenderloin, rolled into temaki.

And the smoke: near-asphyxiation is the point. Good yakitori should wear the battle scars of prized Kishu Binchotan, and on a cold February night, the skewers here looked properly ravaged by the embers’ white-hot temper. The highlights were nearly everything across the 15 or so skewers. Notably uchimomo dakimi (skin-on inner thigh) ringed with char; seseri (neck meat); segimo (back liver); and the pudding-soft, iron-rich liver that made me question all the ones I’ve enjoyed before.

Sometimes the maximalism gets away from them. The tare can feel heavy-handed at times, and while it’s majestic to see dewy fat drip off each skewer like a cold beer on a hot day, this can feel a little recursive after 15 of them. No matter: if the excess is part of the experience, then so is the precision underneath it.

👊 for the Yakitorian sermons, @theone853 ; 👋 to meet you @theprofessionaleater ; 🙏 @mrmeat29 for paving the way.

📍Okagesan, Sendai. 🍽️ Feb ’26. Less