Savor Scout › Food guides › Yakitori
How to find good yakitori
Yakitori is chicken grilled on skewers over charcoal, and a serious yakitori bar uses every part of the bird — thigh, skin, heart, liver, cartilage — one skewer at a time.
What separates a good one from a bad one
- Binchotan charcoal — Japanese white charcoal burns very hot and clean. It gives yakitori its distinctive char.
- Many parts of the chicken — Thigh, wing, skin, heart, gizzard, liver, tail, cartilage. A long list is a serious bar.
- Shio or tare, by skewer — Salt for some cuts, a sweet soy glaze (tare) for others. The cook should choose.
- Tsukune — Chicken meatball, often served with a raw egg yolk for dipping. A signature skewer at most bars.
- A counter facing the grill — Watching the cook manage the coals is part of it.
What to order
- Negima — Thigh with scallion.
- Tsukune — With egg yolk.
- Kawa — Crisp chicken skin.
- Hearts or liver — If adventurous.
- Omakase — Let the chef choose a sequence.
Where to find Yakitori
Yakitori 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 binchotan, charcoal, omakase and specific cuts, and favours dedicated yakitori bars and izakayas over restaurants that list a single chicken skewer.
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
Related food guides
Izakaya, Japanese food, Kebabs