Restaurant reviews
By Virginia Miller
Yokai is an ode to jazz with quality 1970s JBL Pro Series studio speakers and sound-proofing, making music the soul of the lofty space that was home to Salt House for years. The steel, brick and wood-lined bar and restaurant on Mission Street opened just last month, adding a feather in the caps of Marc Zimmerman, Ben Jorgensen and team behind Gozu, one of the great modern Japanese restaurants in the nation since 2019.
Vinyl will never go out of style it seems, and that’s obvious the first moment stepping into Yokai; a space with old-school players, shelves of records, and those retro speakers embedded in some very 80s-looking cabinetry —
My partner Dan, “The Renaissance Man,” and I already feel at home as obsessive vinyl collectors who own record players and even vintage McIntosh amps. But it’s the curation of Yokai’s collection that impresses. There’s plenty of expected legends, like Coltrane and Miles, though some deep cuts albums. They also have a rich selection of Jimmy Smith, one of the greatest organists of all time we collect at home. Same goes with one of my fave jazz guitarists, Wes Montgomery, and the only Charles Mingus. Their jazz focus touches soul, funk, R&B and beyond. Yokai is clearly for music lovers.
As expected from the Gozu team, beyond music, food, drink and service is already in my running list of contenders for best new opening of the year. There are no late night hours yet, but it feels like the kind of place you could linger into the night over highballs and skewers, served in delicate Japanese glassware and ceramics. But there are only four seats at the bar, with potential plans to have a couple extra seats around the DJ station. So better reserve a table, especially as they’re already booking up quickly. Access may already be a downside, but the food and drink sure isn’t.
Much like the Yokai pop-up early this year, the grilled skewer and highball focus is fun, breezy but uber-gourmet. However, it’s much more fleshed out as a restaurant with small and larger plates from chef Zimmerman and chef de cuisine Jessie Lugo. You can make a full meal here or just graze with Jordan Abraham’s (formerly of Atelier Crenn, Mourad, Quince) elegantly-nuanced cocktails and rich Japanese whisky selection. Where Gozu has more sake, Yokai also goes deep on wine, centered on ultimate wine regions like Burgundy, Champagne and Austria next to small California producers.
Abraham‘s highballs give you a welcome non-mainstream choice of Japanese whisky with soda: Mars Iwai Umeshu (plum) Cask, Mars Sakura (cherry blossom), Ichiro’s Malt & Grain or Akashi whisky. Trying most of the cocktail menu, we couldn’t stop raving about Trou Normand, a tribute to France’s great apple brandy, Calvados, and to the tradition of drinking it mid-meal by the same name. Here, Calvados is subtly balanced with Lillet aperitif, shiso (Japanese mint) and Domaine Pêcheur Macvin du Jura dessert wine. It’s dry, softly minty and apple-laden, rolling out with nuanced layers.
This is the cocktail to beat but Martini #1 does it damndest to compete. I’m a jazz, old movie and martini girl since before I could drink. And I’ve sought out savory cocktails since I started researching the early days of NYC and SF’s then-burgeoning cocktail scenes over 20 years ago. Nikka Japanese Gin, sake vermouth, Japanese umami bitters and a pickled sea bean make a clean, briny, beautiful martini. In a decidedly high-low run, there are also cheeky drinks like Mexican Grand Prix, a mix of mezcal, yuzu citrus and, nodding traditional Palomas around Mexico, Squirt.
The heart of Yokai’s food menu is grilled skewers, although don’t be mistaken: some of the most stunning bites were in other sections. Their Japanese binchotan grill turns out glorious skewers like silky Ora King salmon dotted with creme fraiche, matcha powder and dill, or half a cob of Brentwood corn doused in chili powder-dusted cured egg yolk and tofu mayo. If Kauai prawns are on the menu, get them. Seasoned with cherry blossom salt, these nearly raw prawns are just kissed by the grill, as sweet and plump as perfect shrimps I eat raw whenever I’m in Spain, as I did this summer.
The “Intros” bites section blew me away with two bites in particular: our server said chef Lugo played with wagyu-stuffed gyoza in la-yu crunch sauce of fermented chilies, garlic, chives and bonito fish until it was the perfectly honed little dumplings we tasted. That savory-umami sauce was so good, we sopped up every bite. This was aided by the other most memorable Intro: sourdough seaweed focaccia with a miso, black garlic, herb and caviar dip. The dip rocked, but the bread was almost even better in that “crunch” sauce.
The yin to all that umami yang is pristine sashimi. We tried flounder punctuated with shiso gelee and striped Jack in olive oil, wasabi, ginger and lime. Both sang with mineral-crisp 2020 Domaine de Bieville Chardonnay Chablis. Another lighter but generously-portioned dish is broccolini, grilled romaine and Dungeness crab salad in bonito emulsion centered by a jidori egg. There are veggie sides, like Gozu’s impeccable Koshihikari rice, wild California mushrooms in nasturtium gremolata or scalloped sunchokes in lilly bulb cream.
For larger appetites, there’s the Yokai burger on a brioche bun. We opted Japanese mackerel dotted in mustard seeds, mustard flowers and preserved ramps. I always feel mackerel’s oily goodness nurturing my skin and hair, though they grill it with a light hand.
Hearing it was one of the most popular dishes, we also ordered wild boar babyback ribs in tonkatsu barbecue sauce. Slivered green apple sunomono, a Japanese accompaniment normally of slivered cucumber, brightened up the meaty ribs with welcome tartness. Toban-yaki means to roast on a ceramic plate and their Hokkaido scallop and wild vegetables tobanyaki is four lightly seared giant scallops, silky and filling.
We weren’t too full to finish with Japanese whiskies and dessert, however. Abraham always did us right by sake and whisky pours at Gozu and he did the same at Yokai. He first turned us onto Akkeshi Distillery’s excellent whiskies at Gozu. Here we tasted their rare Shosho and Daikin whiskies, and the sherry-cask richness of Kanosuke’s limited edition 2022 whisky. With 2 ½ pages of Japanese whiskies alone on Yokai’s iPad spirits menu, there are plenty of whisky and brandy rarities to geek out on.
We adore Gozu’s ice cream sandos, aso here, but opted for the dessert we hadn’t tried from this talented team: ice cream-stuffed kakigori. Kakigōri is long one of my top Japanese and Hawaiian desserts of shaved ice drenched in syrup and condensed milk, sometimes encasing ice cream, red bean or other joys inside a mound of shaved ice. There are classic versions across SF’s Japantown and gourmet versions at local greats like Ernest. Yokai offered ember-stewed strawberry in kinako streusel or brightly green, grassy, nutty matcha pistachio kakigori. We opted for the latter and didn’t regret it.
Yokai adds up, though more affordable than its tasting menu parent, Gozu. Yokai is fine dining and Japan-worthy excellence in ingredients, glassware, details, but with low key, a la carte vibes.
Yokai still feels like SF: perfected, geeky yet come-as-you-are California casual. Most of all, it’s fun. For music and jazz lovers, for food and drink obsessives, for a top-notch but laid back night on the town. It’s the upscale-casual SF has long done so well — I’d posit, better than any city in the U.S. Zimmerman and team have brought us another winner, and a very approachable one at that.
// 545 Mission Street, www.yokaisf.com
Virginia Miller is a San Francisco-based food & drink writer.
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