Savor Scout › Food guides › Teriyaki
How to find good teriyaki
Teriyaki in the US mostly means the Seattle-style teriyaki shop: grilled chicken thigh, sweet soy glaze, white rice and a little salad. It is cheap, fast, and very good when the grill is doing its job.
What separates a good one from a bad one
- Grilled, not boiled in sauce — Chicken thigh grilled over a flame so the glaze caramelises and chars at the edges.
- Sauce with balance — Soy, mirin, sugar and ginger. Glossy, not syrupy.
- Thigh meat — Juicier than breast, and the classic choice.
- Chopped and piled on rice — Seattle style: chopped chicken, a big scoop of rice, a bit of iceberg salad with dressing.
- A busy lunch rush — Fast turnover means the meat is coming fresh off the grill.
What to order
- Chicken teriyaki plate — The classic.
- Spicy chicken teriyaki — Many shops offer it.
- Beef or salmon teriyaki — For variety.
- Gyoza — On the side.
- Extra sauce — For the rice.
Where to find Teriyaki
Teriyaki is mostly found at Japanese restaurants, so that is where to look. Open listings put 13,468 of them across the US, and these are the cities and campuses with the most.
Cities with the most
New York, NY 528 Los Angeles, CA 274 San Francisco, CA 192 Honolulu, HI 192 Las Vegas, NV 148 Seattle, WA 122 Chicago, IL 121 San Diego, CA 94
Campuses with the most within a mile
NYU 176 Touro University 163 The Graduate Center 163 Baruch 162 New School University 154 FIT 132
A few to start with
- icca — New York, NY
20 Warren St, New York - Azay — Los Angeles, CA
226 1st St, Los Angeles - Zaoh — San Francisco, CA
1555 Mission St, San Francisco - Irifune Restaurant — Honolulu, HI
850 Mililani St, Honolulu - Bocho Sushi — Las Vegas, NV
124 S 6th St Ste 150, Las Vegas - joybento — Seattle, WA
214 Madison St, Seattle
Counts are listings in Overture Maps open data (September 2026), counted by the town in each address. Independent places only in the examples above, and they are a starting point rather than a ranking.
How Savor Scout looks for it
The search reads for grilled, chicken thigh and Seattle-style, and favours dedicated teriyaki shops, which consistently out-cook restaurants that list teriyaki among dozens of dishes.
Looking in a particular city?
Each of these opens Savor Scout with the location already set, so you can say what you want and it searches from there. It covers 1,000 US cities in total — these are simply the largest.
- New York, NY
- Los Angeles, CA
- Chicago, IL
- Houston, TX
- Philadelphia, PA
- Phoenix, AZ
- San Antonio, TX
- San Diego, CA
- Dallas, TX
- San Jose, CA
- Austin, TX
- Indianapolis, IN
- Jacksonville, FL
- San Francisco, CA
- Columbus, OH
- Charlotte, NC
- Fort Worth, TX
- Detroit, MI
- El Paso, TX
- Memphis, TN
- Seattle, WA
- Denver, CO
- Washington, DC
- Boston, MA
- Nashville, TN
- Baltimore, MD
- Oklahoma City, OK
- Louisville, KY
- Portland, OR
- Las Vegas, NV
- Milwaukee, WI
- Albuquerque, NM
- Tucson, AZ
- Fresno, CA
- Sacramento, CA
- Long Beach, CA
- Kansas City, MO
- Mesa, AZ
- Virginia Beach, VA
- Atlanta, GA
- Colorado Springs, CO
- Omaha, NE
- Raleigh, NC
- Miami, FL
- Oakland, CA
- Minneapolis, MN
- Tulsa, OK
- Cleveland, OH
- Wichita, KS
- Arlington, TX
- New Orleans, LA
- Bakersfield, CA
- Tampa, FL
- Honolulu, HI
- Aurora, CO
- Anaheim, CA
- Santa Ana, CA
- St. Louis, MO
- Riverside, CA
- Corpus Christi, TX
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