RESTAURANT REVIEW: YORONIKU (MINAMI-AOYAMA)

December 03, 2025 ,featured ,restaurant review

Photo: WebLeon

Look, if you’re in Tokyo and you love beef, Yoroniku is the place you book months in advance and then lie to your friends about how you got a table. It’s a yakiniku joint two minutes from Omotesando Station, opened in 2007 by a guy who used to run the grill at Yakiniku Jumbo. No kids under 15, no big groups, no walk-ins, and the reservation war on Tabelog every first of the month is basically a blood sport. Using Tokyo-Met's enormous underground pulling power, I finally scored a counter seat for one in October and went straight for the full ¥21,500 omakase ("chef’s choice").

The room has something of a retro 1980s hotel vibe, rather relaxed and slightly closer to a salaryman hangout than the sterile luxury boxes you get at some new-wave places.

You sit at a counter around the grill masters, or at a table or booth table, each with their own grill pan. Service is sharp but never stuffy; they just keep the sake coming and the grill hot, which has added appeal in the Winter months.

Here’s what I ate in order:

I started with raw liver pâté and kimchi—clean, cold, perfect palate-cleanser stuff.
Beef tongue, thick-cut, grilled rare. Crunchy outside, almost creamy inside. Best tongue I’ve ever had (no pun intended).
Two different cuts of skirt (harami and sagari), both with insane marbling, zero chew, just melted fat that coated the tongue like butter.
The famous truffle sukiyaki: paper-thin raw wagyu dipped for three seconds in bubbling broth, then into raw egg yolk with fresh truffle shaved on top.
Wagyu caviar nigiri—tiny rice balls topped with raw beef tartare and real caviar. Sounds like wanker food, tastes like a million yen.
Mid-meal reset: cold noodles in beef broth, sharp and refreshing.
Chateaubriand katsu sando. Yes, an actual deep-fried A5 chateaubriand sandwich on crustless white bread -- hot n' juicy. I would have fought someone for a second one.
Finished with yuzu kakigori lit by a sparkler (because Japan).

Portions aren’t huge—maybe 350-400 g of meat total—but the quality is so high you don’t need more. I walked out full, slightly drunk, and completely converted. ¥21,500 plus drinks came to about ¥26,000, which depending on the exchange rate is a McDonalds or a Michelin star in the West. I’ve paid much more for much worse steak in London or Berlin and not had half the fun. If you can get in, go. If you can’t, keep trying.