Zakkushi on Queen W — Restaurant in Toronto

If you've had yakitori as it's intended, this ain't it. It's not even close. No, it's not authentic. The place is packed, it has great reviews, so I guess we're outliers, but we went in excited and left seriously disappointed. We hoped for memories of Japan and instead had worse yakitori than what we made in a friend's backyard.

I know we (Toronto) have more rules and limitations here regarding many things that impact yakitori, e.g. can't have a wood fire going, but this was a let down beyond that.

What makes yakitori great? Wood fire at a high heat, a great tare, and served immediately off the grill with cold beer. It should be a place to get blasted and slam deliciously grilled meat consistently until you can't anymore.

No wood fire or charcoal? Ok, I guess they can't. No real tare, just "teriyaki" or salt? That was odd. Tare is a fundamental and core part of yakitori. We're now missing two primary pieces. Well, it's also about cold beer and hot meat. But the food served was luke warm at best. That's three strikes. Every bite was saddening. It's a bit weird eating rare beef served warm.

We cut our dinner short after the first round because we were so disappointed. We had 8 different skewer types, and none were great. There was no char, a primary flavour profile of soy sauce, and nothing was hot except the grilled rice with soy sauce which helped us chug the beers we had left in order to leave.

We ended up having a slice of pizza later for 1/10 the price and 10x the satisfaction.

Sorry to leave such a brutal review, but I can't explain how disappointed we were. Staff were friendly, although service was a bit slow. The restaurant is pretty but the wrong vibe.

Again, I admit that apparently everybody else loves the place, so I guess we're wrong. For me, this is not a yakitori restaurant, it's a mock yakitori restaurant.

If you enjoyed different random cuts of grilled meat, I supposed you'll enjoy; I just hope...

Wandered into this location as I was looking for something to have for dinner and I like izakaya. I had high hopes but it was honestly sort of underwhelming.

I was dining alone and was seated at the counter by the grill, which was fine. Hostess and server were friendly and nice enough. Except that after ordering they seated a young guy next to me and I realized that the women servers were not only much more attentive to him but offered up suggestions, mentioned specials they never even told me about and gave him tips about ordering things ’extra crispy’ etc. I had gotten none of that. I was mildly affronted and pretty annoyed by that. There was no reason to treat me any differently as I was friendly with the server.

Then the food came, most of the skewers were decent if not particularly remarkable. The flavours were not very complex. The crispy fish skin was really good and I especially liked the chicken knuckle skewer. The chicken liver skewer came slightly undercooked, which didn’t inspire confidence as I started to worry a little about potential for food poisoning (I am fine, but undercooked liver that is still a little bloody is not ideal).

I also noticed one of the chefs was sweating profusely, which is understandable while attending constantly to the hot open grill, but he was sweating down his forehead and dripping down his nose possibly onto the food he was cooking. It was pretty unappetizing to watch this, wondering if my skewer was going to have sweat on it.

Maybe instead of letting the cooks/chefs wear ball caps they could be wearing something lighter or that would help catch the perspiration better like a bandana? Or they can have face cloths or towels handy to wipe the sweat? I don’t know…

Overall fairly underwhelming. I’ve had way better Izakaya and better skewers in the city. I doubt I...

I really love Zakkushi having been to their original location on Carlton a few times! Loved the new location on Queen Street. Definitely nicer décor here and more spacious! This is definitely the place to be for authentic yakitori dishes which you can see skewered over a charocoal grilled at the back by the chefs- that’s why it taste so good!!! This is a great place to come with a group of friends. It was definitely busy when we came on a Sunday night. We ordered a bunch of dishes as we wanted to try a bit of everything here such as the yakitori sets, the mochi cheese skewer, the kawahagi (dried fish w/ spicy mayo), the amazing scallop skewers, ebi mayo, takowasabi and dorayaki matcha ice cream, the black sesame creme brulee and Hojicha pudding were amazing desserts!

These tapas style dishes go so nicely with some refreshing beer options here. They even have Asahi on draft!! The Yakitori sets were great because you get to try a variety of their skewers and figure out which ones you want to order. Looking at the menu with all the skewers, it can be a daunting task to decide! The scallop skewers were pretty big and you get 2 of them with each skewer. They were nicely seasoned and was absolutely delicious!

To finish of the delicious meal, we wrapped up with desserts and ordered all their desserts including the dorayaki matcha ice cream, hojicha pudding and black sesame crème brulee. Their desserts were quite good. My favorite was definitely the dorayaki and the matcha green ice cream was quite nice! The black sesame crème brulee was quite interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Overall, a very pleasant meal and really enjoyed my dining experience here. Staff were friendly and attentive. Food was absolutely delicious and service was exceptional! Can’t wait to come...