Inakaya is the most Japanese of New York’s Japanese restaurants. This striking five-month-old spot in the New York Times Building is noteworthy for yet another reason. It’s unlike all the standard cookie-cutter, predictable Japanese eating places that dot the city. It’s a Robatayaki -- or Japanese barbecue/grilling restaurant -- in which the chefs perform in an open kitchen just a few feet from diners seated at a long counter. They serve them directly with a long wooden pizza paddle-type stick called a Hera. Between the chefs and patrons is an ice shelf that displays the seafood, meat, poultry and vegetables that are cooked by the Yankikata (grillers).
In addition to all the standard sushi, sushi rolls, sashimi, miso soup, edamame, etc., Inakaya offers Kinki, a deep-sea snapper flown to New York from the Tsuiji Market in Tokyo, roasted rice balls, dried stingray fins, dried sardines, ground chicken thighs on skewers, Wagyu beef, egg custard steamed with shrimp, chicken and vegetables and pork bellies.
Although Inakaya is little known in New York, it’s a celebrated 40-year old restaurant in Tokyo that has been visited by everyone from American presidents and political leaders to Hollywood stars. Its first and only U.S. branch, like the original, specializes in small to medium-size portions of meticulously prepared fresh ingredients that are works of art on the plate. It’s a quality-not-quantity venue that serves refined, gourmet Japanese fare.
Although the fashionable Inakaya, with its massive glass front, mammoth pillars, high ceiling and lanterns, is a destination restaurant, it’s anything but a stiff, formal, serene spot. Newcomers are warmly greeted by a chorus from the cheerleader-like chefs. They also perform two lively ceremonies that involve the restaurant’s patrons. In one, a lovely Japanese girl thanks the restaurant’s customers for coming and wishes them good health and happiness, then leads the staff and diners in a unison clapping routine. The other, held in the restaurant’s spacious front window, involves two chefs and then diners who volunteer pounding brown rice sprinkled with soy bean powder and sugar into a sticky rice cake. All of this makes Benihana look like a small-time, minor-league operation.
Among the recommended dishes are the soft, juicy Berkshire pork belly in broth ($14), the two mild, soothing pieces of roasted rice ball, the whole kinki ($65) with its grilled sea salt surface, and the Wagyu duo combination ($35) with a skewer of U.S. Kobe beef and a superior one of unbelievably tender Wagyu beef.
While Inakaya is convenient to Times Square and the Theater District, it is located near the Port Authority, an area not known for its outstanding restaurants -- until now.
231 W. 40th St. (7-8 Aves.), 212-354-2195; www.inakayany.com
Richard Jay Scholem was a restaurant critic for the New York Times Long Island Section for 14 years. His A La Carte Column appeared from 1990 to 2004. For more “Taste of the Town” reviews, click here.
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