Kono

Kono has been something on my radar for quite some time. It’s been a bit since we’ve splurged quality yakitori, so I was able to snipe a reservation for a Saturday night out at 5:30 PM fairly quickly on Resy. Chef Atsushi “ATS” Kono was originally at Torishin, and after looking at the menu, I was excited to see what this experience brought. This restaurant focused on kappo-style yakitori omakase featuring organic Amish chicken and seasonable vegetables.

The restaurant entrance is located on Bowery. There’s a gate that you have to enter to walk through an alleyway all the way to the end. Part of it is because the entrance on Elizabeth is closed.

Ambiance & Service

When we arrived, they placed this card in our cloth napkin. On the backside, they indicate where all the chicken pieces are for reference. I thought they would serve everything on the card, but that’s not the case. Some of these items are not always available, and some are supplementary and cost extra.

The inside of the restaurant is compact, but with high walls. Most of the seating is a 14-seat kitchen counter type seating surrounding the charcoal grills in front. There was a table behind us was for larger parties of 4 to 6 people. The ambiance had a lot of black undertones, and it felt like this was a very serious place. In some cases, I surprisingly wished there was a little more lighting especially when they turned off the grills toward the end of our tasting.

Despite the dark undertones, the service was absolutely stunning and welcoming. Our hosts were all very approachable and friendly. Chef Kono at the end went to each of the dining parties and expressed his gratitude for their visit.

The omakase chef’s tasting was $175 per person before tax and gratuity, and you can order supplements or reorder any skewer that was prepared earlier. The total time for this experience was about 2.75 hours for us. We noticed if you skipped the supplements, you would’ve been finished earlier, probably closer to 2.25 hours.

Food

The Ero ($17 - left) came with Haku vodka, sparkling wine, mikan, and cardamom. This was very smooth but quite strong at the end of it. My partner drank this fast since it was so balanced, and they were a bit woozy.

The Pouilly-Fuissé “La Collonge” ($24 - right) was a white wine that came from Domaine Gilles Noblet, Burgundy, France, 2020. I drank this for the entire night, and it was an excellent complement to most courses. This was a dry white wine that was very well balanced and had very nice mineral tones.

The soup starter consisted of ginger, chicken broth, and some green onions. The chicken broth was very delicious and had a wonderful aroma. The seasoning was very balanced and not salty. I can literally drink this almost every day.

The 1st of 3 appetizers was the grilled sweet baby corn. This came with caviar and some lime zest. You can see there was the corn husk around it, so you’re supposed to unfold the corn husk and eat the corn on the cob in one bite. When you do, you get this wonderful sweet and salty umami taste from the combination. It’s so simple, but also so very delicious.

The next appetizer was the Japanese eggplant. This was cold smoked and had a crispy chicken skin on top with some shiso flowers. The eggplant was very smooth, and the chicken skin was crispy with a lot of smoke and charcoal flavors.

The last appetizer was the chicken pate. This had some truffle miso on it, and was encased between 2 mochi rice wafers. They ask that you press down on the wafer to make it into a delicious sandwich with a dense pate filling. The pate had some nice truffle aromas and was salty in the right ways. Absolutely sublime.

After, they gave us some seasonings. The left was a medley of numbing seasonings intended for organ meats, and the right was a roasted 7 spice seasoning good for skins and other meats. To be honest, you don’t really need either of these seasonings since the chicken skewers are already seasoned with the default, but these definitely add some additional senses in case if that’s what you prefer.

They also gave us some daikon, which was intended be a palette cleanser after each course for the remaining items prior to the dessert. The daikon had some shiso and ponzu in it.

The chicken tail was so deliciously tender. I’ve never had this before, and I would for sure order this again.

The chicken heart was cooked very nicely and had the charcoal aromas. My partner who loves chicken hearts also absolutely loved this one. The chicken hearts were large, plump, and juicy.

The chicken knee had some cartilage on it that made it crunchy but very enjoyable. You get a mixture of the chicken leg meat plus that crunch.

The ATS ($19) came with Aokage 41 Mugi Shochu, tare, grapefruit, and green tea. This shochu was filtered just once, and it is similar to Korean shoju. The cocktail has a very unique and exciting taste to it. The tare is actually the secret ingredient from the Chef that he uses to baste the chicken in some courses. This secret ingredients thickens the drink a little, so it has this wonderful and complex dance of sweet, smokey, and savory all together. It was quite smooth, but it was definitely thicker than normal cocktail drinks.

The inner thigh was basted with some seasoning already, so no need to really add anything more. It was tender, juicy, and very savory.

The chicken belly was topped with ume sauce and thinly shredded shiso leaf. This was very stunning in itself because there was a nice balance of the chicken juice, the sweet and savory sauce, and the earthy and fresh aroma of the shiso leaf. It was very delicious.

The chicken oyster was wrapped in chicken skin and served with dabs of yuzu koshu on top. Basically it’s some sort of yuzu seasoning that really amplified the flavor of the chicken. The chicken oyster is the dark meat on the back of a chicken thigh, and there are only 2 pieces of it per chicken. This was so good!

This course indicated we were at the halfway point.

The shiitake mushroom was marinated with soy, butter, and some truffle. The shiitake was cooked perfectly like a steak, and even though I hate mushrooms, I was able to eat this partially because my partner did not particularly enjoy the truffle flavor (they have some distaste for truffle in general).

The kushi katsu was basically chicken thigh meat with a Fuji apple puree on top. This was really good. It was like eating a tender, juicy fried chicken meat patty with sweet apple daikon medley on top.

The quail came with pickled daikon radish. The quail was nicely smoked and had a nice savory glaze that was perfectly balanced.

The final course before supplements was the chicken beef wagyu slider. This came with chicken thigh and A5 wagyu meatball, arugula, Japanese pickles, truffle mayo, and sandwiched between brioche buns. The meat was very juicy and delicious. I don’t know if the wagyu meat was really needed, but it was really good and flavorful.

The Chicken Gizzard (+$8 per skewer) was crunchy, smokey, and had excellent flavors.

The Chicken Neck (+$12 per skewer) was very tender and had a small crunch to it. It was really good.

The Chicken Feet (+$12 per order) was served with 2 because the Chef thought they were small. The skin and tendons were easy to chew off, and it had nice flavors throughout.

The Iberico Pork shoulder (+$25 per plate) came sliced with yuzu koshu. Even though this restaurant prides itself in serving chicken pieces, they offered pork as a supplement because the Chef loves pork shoulder as well. I will say that this was absolutely stunning for me. The pork had a this nice smokey exterior and was very juicy and tender. The yuzu koshu was something that really enhanced everything about it. I would definitely order this again.

To transition to dessert, they gave us udon in a chicken broth with scallion and some yuzu. The udon was bouncy, fresh, and had a delicious chewy texture to it. The broth was mild with very little seasoning, and it absolutely sealed the night for the savory courses in one of the most ideal and perfect ways.

We received a side of mandarin sorbet and a red bean wafer, all made in house. The mandarin sorbet was tart but it really cleaned up your palette quickly. The red bean wafer was delicately sweet and delicious.

The last and final course of the night was this fantastic Okinawan wax sugar creme brulee. It was sealed with some smoke in it. This was cold, but the custard was so tasty in all the right ways. You get notes of smoke, sweet, and milky creamy sensations. We both agreed that was by far one of the best, if not the best, creme brulee we’ve had in the city thus far, and we’ve been to too many restaurants.

Final Verdict

As you can see, there were over 20 “courses” throughout the night. We left full, and with a smile on our faces, we felt this was a restaurant and experience we highly recommend to anyone interested in skewers. Compared to Torishin, this restaurant was more modern, refined, and the whole package deal for Yakitori. I wouldn’t be surprised if in a couple years this ends up garnering a Michelin star at some point. Regardless of these superficial accolades, we very much highly recommend this restaurant to anyone that wants a delicious, full set yakitori experience.

Yelp Jabs

Where I dock a star is the fact that I did feel the food was a bit overpriced!

This Yelper comes from Los Angeles, so they don’t really have an idea of the pricing compared to other New York higher end restaurants. It’s certainly not cheap, but I feel a whole lot better what I paid for this compared to other restaurants. The kitchen experience was spectacular, and the food and service was noteworthy.

Both of us got sick after having dinner here, and we were awake all night going to bathroom.
prefix menu selection was ok and yakitori was ok, but not worth the $170, few pieces did have the gamey taste and smell

We did not get sick at all, so this was unfortunate to hear. But this Yelper did mention gamey tastes, which I thought was amusing because the chicken is free range. There will always be some Yelpers like this with very nuanced preferences, so their comments tend to stand out to me like a sore thumb.

Revisions

1. Jun 17, 2023 - Initial revision.