First and foremost, Higonoya is a restaurant of the people, for the people. Starting out as a snack bar in 1971 in the years following the first Tokyo Olympics, the restaurant was first conceived as a place for Japan’s workers to relax. Japanese workers are hard at work putting Japan on the global stage, reasoned its founding couple Ryosuke and Satoe Haseba. They deserve a place to put their feet up.  

The Aoyama landscape has changed significantly in the 50-odd years since then, and even Higonoya did not go unaffected. The leadership was passed from the Haseba family patriarch to his son, the restaurant underwent a name change, and the restaurant even pivoted entirely from being a snack bar to a full-fledged yakitori specialist.  

But two things in particular have not changed. The first, the original promise to offer Japan’s working population a place to relax. Across all its outlets, Higonoya has earned itself a reputation for quality food and a supremely welcoming environment at wallet-friendly prices. This has resulted in overwhelming popularity among both salarymen getting post-work drinks and guests celebrating special occasions.  

The second thing to remain unchanged is the deliciousness of the food at Higonoya. The chicken used in Higonoya’s yakitori skewers is Uredori chicken of Ninohe City in Iwate Prefecture, widely regarded as one of the most delicious jidori chicken in Japan.   

Left to mature for up to nine times as long as a regular chicken, the free-range Uredori are known for their distinctive, satisfying texture and strong umami flavor. Refrigerated and shipped straight from Ninohe to Tokyo, the meat never sees the inside of a freezer before it is on the grill; it’s so fresh, it simply doesn’t need to.