Omakase and chicken-forward restaurants are not hard to find in Toronto, but the latest project from chef Masaki Saito combines the two in a way that’s never been done before in the city.
In Japan, yakitori at its highest level is elevated to a precise culinary art form. Rather than simple casual skewers, the best yakitori spots in Japan function much like high-end sushi counters, offering dedicated omakase tasting menus centred on hyper-specific poultry breeds, whole-animal utilization and expert charcoal technique.
Bringing that authentic approach to Canada, the Michelin-starred chef behind Sushi Masaki Saito, MSSM and Ramen Tabetai, Saito has partnered with chef Takuma Mukouzaka to open Yakitori Momiji in Yorkville. The restaurant serves a fifteen-course yakitori tasting menu, priced at $248, built around heritage chicken raised in Ontario specifically for Momiji.
After training at the Tsuji Culinary School, Mukouzaka worked in the Michelin-starred French restaurant Cosimo Plus, before spending five years at a Michelin-starred yakitori restaurant in Osaka.
The two chefs say they came together with the belief that while there’s a wide selection of chicken to dine on across Toronto, there was something missing — an authentic yakitori counter.
On the surface, yakitori might seem like simply grilled skewers of chicken, but it’s so much more than that — it’s about everything that comes well before the plating. The unique, large breed of chicken is raised intentionally for the restaurant for the purpose of yakitori. Over two years, Saito and Mukouzaka worked with a farm near London, Ontario perfecting the practice of Japanese poultry-raising techniques.
These chickens are given separate pens and infrastructure on the farm, and they have customized feed, including a largely rice-based diet. Where conventional chicken is raised for just a few weeks, this breed is raised for 16 weeks before being consumed. Combined, these techniques result in chicken with a deeper flavour, a distinct texture and a richness to the fat.
Each cut of chicken is grilled over binchotan charcoal imported from Japan. Seated at the warm, wood-lined 12-seat counter overlooking the grill, guests can watch the chefs give each skewer their undivided attention. Everything, from the skewer’s distance from the charcoal to the precise grilling time, is carefully considered.
That attention to detail extends to the whole bird, with the thigh, heart, skin and neck each offering a distinct texture and reacting differently to the charcoal.
The chefs say that all of this together — the breeding of the chickens to every last detail on the grill to serving it for the guest — is yakitori, while “Momiji,” referring to the Japanese maple leaf, highlights its new home here in Toronto.
Yakitori Momiji is located at 156 Cumberland St.