Chicken is the most ordinary protein on earth, which is exactly why one new Yorkville restaurant has decided to treat it like fine art. Yakitori Momiji opened at 156 Cumberland St. with a 12-seat counter and a single, very focused idea.
The restaurant comes from chef Masaki Saito and William Cheng, the pair behind Sushi Masaki Saito, MSSM and Ramen Tabetai, along with chef and co-owner Takuma Mukouzaka, who spent years perfecting yakitori in Japan. The menu is a 15-course omakase at $248 per person. Each course is a different cut of chicken, skewered, grilled over imported binchotan charcoal and served one skewer at a time so it hits your plate at its peak.
The twist is the bird itself. Over roughly two years, the team worked with an Ontario farm to develop a heritage breed raised only for Momiji. Reporting from Streets of Toronto adds that the birds are raised for around 16 weeks, far longer than conventional chicken, which the chefs say builds deeper flavour, a firmer texture and richer fat. The chicken is never frozen, and the name Momiji, the Japanese word for maple leaf, is a nod to its new Toronto home.
It is a splurge, no question, and some diners will raise an eyebrow at a restaurant built around a custom-bred chicken. But for anyone who follows Toronto’s omakase boom, it is a fascinating new chapter: the same obsessive precision once reserved for sushi, now applied to a humble skewer.
Treat yourself to something different. Reserve a seat at Yakitori Momiji for a special occasion, then come back and tell us whether the chicken lived up to the hype.