The best of both worlds

Richard Newton has a license plate that reads “OISHII,” which means “delicious” in Japanese. He has a grill in his backyard that he specially retrofitted for yakitori grilling, and flat, skinny Japanese-styled ceramic plates that were given to him by his former host parents in Japan. 

For several years now, he’s been working to perfect the traditional street-food style yell — in perfect Japanese — announcing “Welcome, welcome, welcome! Delicious food on the grill!” so that when he opens his new authentic Japanese casual dining restaurant, Kyoto Yakitori, people will feel just a little more like they’re actually in Japan.

“[Yakitori] combines the familiar with the exotic, the best of both worlds,” Newton said. “I want to allow people to experience the atmosphere and those evenings without having to buy a plane ticket.”

Kyoto Yakitori will be located downtown, right across from the Pizitz Food Hall, in the ground-floor of the Ideal Building and is slated to open sometime in late fall.

The word “yakitori” literally means grilled chicken, and it also is known as a casual cuisine in Japan consisting of grilled meat and vegetables served on wooden skewers. Kyoto is the ancient capital of Japan, and also where Newton’s love for yakitori begin. 

Though Newton has previously spent his time in Birmingham working as an attorney, owning the restaurant is about to become his full-time job. He said he is trying as much as possible to keep his restaurant Kyoto-centric, and to mimic Japanese styles of restaurant, interior design, workflow and cuisine.

“I’ve had more yakitori than most Japanese probably have,” he laughed. “You’ve got to love what you do.”

In the past year alone, he’s been to Japan three times, working on menu items and tweaking recipes. He always visits his favorite the hole in the wall yakitori restaurants is Kyoto. Most of them know him by now.

“I was turned on to all manner of Japanese food you can’t find here,” Newton said. “Yakitori was one of those foods I was exposed to in Japan. I loved it, not only the food, but the atmosphere.”

“That is what I want to recreate here,” he said, adding that yakitori is hard to find in the U.S., especially in the Southeast.

The Kyoto Yakitori menu will feature small, affordably priced plates, with each order consisting of a serving size of two skewers. There will also be sides offered, with options such as rice cakes, pickles, potato salads and a complimentary appetizer of cabbage and vegetables with specialty dipping sauces. The food, he said, is similarly styled to street food. Beer, wine and sake will also be on the menu. 

He said it’s common for people to order a round of drinks and several sides, and then for the various sides and skewers to be delivered to tables separately as each of them are ready. This is in contrast to the American way of delivering the main meal at once, when all of it is ready.

“The food comes out when it comes out,” he said. “You’re talking and can have a drink and enjoy. You can try something new or have another skewer of something you’ve tried.”

The restaurant itself will seat less than 50 people, so that it develops and maintains a level of intimacy and “homeyness,” Newton said, that will allow the servers the opportunity to give the kind of attention that creating a yakitori atmosphere needs. 

The yakitori he plans to offer includes chicken, pork, steak, some seafood, vegetables and combinations of them cooked together on skewers. Another signature part of yakitori is the handmade sauce that the meats are to be dipped in. The meat is alternated between being served in the tare (meaning dripped in homemade sauce) or shio (sprinkled with a little sea salt) style.

Newton said he’s worked hard to get his sauces right, and although there is no “one type” of sauce, he has modeled his off of his favorites in Kyoto. 

“There’s been a pork joint in Kyoto that has been my go-to pork place since 2002, I’ve been there dozens of times,” he said. “In September, I finally hit him up for the recipe, and right away he called to his wife in the back, and she wrote it all down in Japanese for me.”

Yakitori ingredients include both red and white miso, sesame oil, tamari, ginger and other traditional Japanese ingredients that enhance flavor while still being relatively healthy. He expects many health-conscious patrons, like cyclists, runners and athletes, to embrace the menu.

So far, Newton has been hosting popups, backyard parties and other private Yakitori events. He’s grilled and sold Yakitori at breweries, Marty’s PM and other various restaurants. 

He and his operations manager, Joshua Braden, are currently in the process of looking for a grill master, though he or Braiden can fill in at the grill if needed. Otherwise, Newton will be focused on day-to-day operations to keep the shop running smoothly. 

The end goal for Kyoto Yakitori is for its flagship restaurant to be in Birmingham, and then he intends to have more open in other parts of Alabama and eventually in the Southeast. 

“A good number of people have visited Japan on business, who have lived and laughed over here, and they’re aching for his, and they miss it, and there’s Japanese people and Japanese-language students, and they miss it, too. I also want to provide it to the people who haven’t been to Japan yet,” he said.

Visit their website at kyotoyakitori.com or their Facebook page at Kyoto Yakitori to stay tuned for their official open date.