Stick ’em up!

How to master Japanese yakitori at home, writes Dan Stock

At its core, it’s just chicken on a stick. But so as sashimi is just raw fish, or tempura just battered veg, like other elements of Japanese cuisine, sure it’s that, but it’s so much more.

Yakitori is grilled chicken, elevated to culinary art.

Canadian chef Matt Abergel has spent years learning and perfecting yakitori — Japanese chicken skewers cooked over coal — at Hong Kong’s acclaimed Yardbird.

The chef’s obsession with chicken began when he was a young boy who would cook chook over hot coals every weekend during summer holidays.

But it was during his time spent at Masa, New York’s temple of sushi, that he ironically perfected this cooking technique by serving yakitori for his boss, Masayoshi Takayama, for staff meals.

“For me, yakitori is a really pure expression of Japanese food, while still being accessible and fun,” Matt says.

“When we opened Yardbird I wanted my friends and family to be able to enjoy and afford to eat at our restaurant whenever they wanted — not needing a special occasion or savings account.”

And it’s worked. Yardbird still attracts queues of diners each night seven years after opening.

They come for all the bits of chicken — from breast and inner thigh and wing through Achilles, soft knee bone and gizzard — artfully skewered and deftly cooked over coal.

Closer to home, yakitori is a feature on the menu at new Japanese restaurant Future Future, while Adam Liston also focused on yakitori at his late- lamented Melbourne restaurant Northern Light and has since introduced Adelaide to the charms of chicken on a stick to winning effect at Shobosho, which is named No.10 in the South Australian delicious. 100.