Came here for my 31st birthday dinner on Wednesday, January 17th! Ippuku is one of those places I always walked by when I was a student at Cal (c/o 2015, GO BEARS!), and have been meaning to try. It was super easy to make reservations ahead of time. I had booked the Treehouse seating, since it was just a party of 2 for me and my husband, which I'm glad I did because it made the experience more intimate, private, and reminded me of an izakaya in Japan. My husband and I went to Japan spring of 2023, and miss the food very much. Ippuku is probably as close as we can get to Japan, in the East Bay! Vibes: very mixed crowd. I saw many college students that were dressed super casually (think sweats, probably gonna go back to the library later to study), as well as well-dressed older couples. My husband and I definitely fit in with the latter since we wanted to dress up a little for my birthday. Ippuku has an expansive whiskey bar, so we had to snap a photo or two there.It took us awhile to get seated because the restaurant was packed, but once we were seated, our waiter was very attentive given how busy they were. I would rate service 4/5 because of the long wait time to get seated and because the waiter forgot to include one item of our order, and it was an item that takes longer than typical to come out (the grilled onigiri). When the onigiri finally came out, we had already finished eating everything else so it was a bit underwhelming. But overall, we enjoyed everything we ordered and would definitely want to visit Ippuku again in the future.Parking: You're in Downtown Berkeley and there's lot of foot traffic around here, so it was a bit difficult to find parking at first. We had to circle around a few times before we found street parking.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 4
Recommended dishes: Buta Bara Kurobuta Pork Belly, Chicken Kara-Age, Yakitori
A big fan of Japanese food, I still had never gone to a real down home Japanese style grill like this before, with the kind of meats that I don't often order, like chicken hearts, chicken livers, quail eggs, and radish roots, all cooked over a wood grill, and all of which came fresh, because they butcher on site. If you want to catch all the flavors which is usually what I want to do, order the chef's choice, and they will bring you skewers with several different delights, chicken, hearts, gizzards, and other delights.The sake menu is to die for, we chose the Ginjo, smooth full-bodied high-end sake.Highly recommend this place, it has very cozy booths, and a warm interior and the staff is super nice. When you want Japanese, what you want to try something that is a far cry from the college sushi joints that abound in this area try Ippuku. You will not be disappointed.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Connie Yang
Food and decor was great, staff was a bit finicky, wouldn’t hurry the previous table out (they had already paid) and instead delayed our reservation of 10.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 4
Service: 3
Mengxuan
Great Izakaya. They have probably the best skewers in Berkeley.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Melinda Guo
The food was so delicious and innovative! The cocktails were very well balanced, one of the best I have ever had, and being an mixologist myself, I have high standards when it comes to cocktails;)We had to wait about 50min to get seated, and it's not cheap, but I say it's worth the wait and money. It's so precious to find unique, authentic, creative and quality ethnic food nowadays.Highly recommend!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Luke Stone
Fantastic yakitori and very good sake selection. Packed Japanese atmosphere.
Delicious and authentic small plates! This was our first visit and we were impressed with each dish. The portions are small but certainly decadent. The most disappointing aspect was the $10 ice cream scoops which were two small and meager scoops. My favorite was the squid ink fried rice – super tasty!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Keith Watts
So tasty. Love coming back here. Came here right at opening and was able to just walk in!
Visiting from LA.This review is for people who love yakitori and have had amazing yakitori before.So sad for a restaurant that tried so hard on the ambiance but deliver stupid food and bad service.Hostess was not friendly with cheaply dyed blue hair. Probably should be a sign to avoid this restaurantNever had such nasty shishito pepper. Not sure if they were steamed or grilled.Chicken skewers are so bland.Beef tongue was also under seasoned.Attitude doesn’t have the quality of food to match. What a joke.Even the chain shinsengumi in LA has better yakitori.If anyone visits LA. Want nice authentic ambience and great food. Try Nanban-Kan. Or if you want cheaper options. Try shinsengumi .Avoid this atrocity lol
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 1
Service: 1
M T
Five stars for the food and environment. 1 star for my server who had zero patience to guide me through the menu and took my order incorrectly, which resulted in me leaving a bit hungry still as I did not have time to wait for a refire. Luckily the bartender and host were gracious and informative.
Adam Messinger
I think they are having a hard time with food quality consistency. One time I came here everything was perfect. Another time, the yakitori had the distinctive taste of being cooked on a grill with too much flare up.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 3
Service: 4
Lex
The only reason I give this 2 stars is because of the chicken karaage and pork belly. The shiitake mushroom wasn’t even cooked, no seasoning and we didn’t even get a whole mushroom. Chicken skewer was SO BLAND and beef tongue skewer was tough and dry. The seats were uncomfortable with a 2 inch pillow and concrete beneath you. Service was good. Ambiance was meh. This place is way overrated.
Atmosphere: 2
Food: 2
Service: 4
Recommended dishes: Chicken Kara
Angel He
A little disappointed… for both service and food. We called around 8:30pm to see if there would be spot available and the reception told us there should be openings around 9pm. So we came and was not able to get seated until almost 10pm. Food was served extremely slow… we finished our meal around 11:30pm. Not sure why even brining a bottle of sake took them half an hour??? And we were notified fries rice is sold out after the kitchen no longer took any order. Food wise… beef tongue is so over cooked… chicken meat is about average. The only one I would recommend is cherry bacon… rare combo but tastes good. Overall not recommended… too expensive for what you get.
Came here for my 31st birthday dinner on Wednesday, January 17th! Ippuku is one of those places I always walked by when I was a student at Cal (c/o 2015, GO BEARS!), and have been meaning to try. It was super easy to make reservations ahead of time. I had booked the Treehouse seating, since it was just a party of 2 for me and my husband, which I'm glad I did because it made the experience more intimate, private, and reminded me of an izakaya in Japan. My husband and I went to Japan spring of 2023, and miss the food very much. Ippuku is probably as close as we can get to Japan, in the East Bay! Vibes: very mixed crowd. I saw many college students that were dressed super casually (think sweats, probably gonna go back to the library later to study), as well as well-dressed older couples. My husband and I definitely fit in with the latter since we wanted to dress up a little for my birthday. Ippuku has an expansive whiskey bar, so we had to snap a photo or two there.It took us awhile to get seated because the restaurant was packed, but once we were seated, our waiter was very attentive given how busy they were. I would rate service 4/5 because of the long wait time to get seated and because the waiter forgot to include one item of our order, and it was an item that takes longer than typical to come out (the grilled onigiri). When the onigiri finally came out, we had already finished eating everything else so it was a bit underwhelming. But overall, we enjoyed everything we ordered and would definitely want to visit Ippuku again in the future.Parking: You're in Downtown Berkeley and there's lot of foot traffic around here, so it was a bit difficult to find parking at first. We had to circle around a few times before we found street parking.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 4
Recommended dishes: Buta Bara Kurobuta Pork Belly, Chicken Kara-Age, Yakitori
Been having a great time here for many years!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Grilled Squid, Cabbage Appetizer, Chicken Kara-Age, Ippuku Ramen, Yakitori, Mackerel
so so, service is
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 3
Service: 2
A big fan of Japanese food, I still had never gone to a real down home Japanese style grill like this before, with the kind of meats that I don't often order, like chicken hearts, chicken livers, quail eggs, and radish roots, all cooked over a wood grill, and all of which came fresh, because they butcher on site. If you want to catch all the flavors which is usually what I want to do, order the chef's choice, and they will bring you skewers with several different delights, chicken, hearts, gizzards, and other delights.The sake menu is to die for, we chose the Ginjo, smooth full-bodied high-end sake.Highly recommend this place, it has very cozy booths, and a warm interior and the staff is super nice. When you want Japanese, what you want to try something that is a far cry from the college sushi joints that abound in this area try Ippuku. You will not be disappointed.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Food and decor was great, staff was a bit finicky, wouldn’t hurry the previous table out (they had already paid) and instead delayed our reservation of 10.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 4
Service: 3
Great Izakaya. They have probably the best skewers in Berkeley.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
The food was so delicious and innovative! The cocktails were very well balanced, one of the best I have ever had, and being an mixologist myself, I have high standards when it comes to cocktails;)We had to wait about 50min to get seated, and it's not cheap, but I say it's worth the wait and money. It's so precious to find unique, authentic, creative and quality ethnic food nowadays.Highly recommend!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Fantastic yakitori and very good sake selection. Packed Japanese atmosphere.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Squid Ink Fried Rice, Yakitori
Delicious and authentic small plates! This was our first visit and we were impressed with each dish. The portions are small but certainly decadent. The most disappointing aspect was the $10 ice cream scoops which were two small and meager scoops. My favorite was the squid ink fried rice – super tasty!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
So tasty. Love coming back here. Came here right at opening and was able to just walk in!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Raw Chicken
Restaurantji Recommends
Visiting from LA.This review is for people who love yakitori and have had amazing yakitori before.So sad for a restaurant that tried so hard on the ambiance but deliver stupid food and bad service.Hostess was not friendly with cheaply dyed blue hair. Probably should be a sign to avoid this restaurantNever had such nasty shishito pepper. Not sure if they were steamed or grilled.Chicken skewers are so bland.Beef tongue was also under seasoned.Attitude doesn’t have the quality of food to match. What a joke.Even the chain shinsengumi in LA has better yakitori.If anyone visits LA. Want nice authentic ambience and great food. Try Nanban-Kan. Or if you want cheaper options. Try shinsengumi .Avoid this atrocity lol
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 1
Service: 1
Five stars for the food and environment. 1 star for my server who had zero patience to guide me through the menu and took my order incorrectly, which resulted in me leaving a bit hungry still as I did not have time to wait for a refire. Luckily the bartender and host were gracious and informative.
I think they are having a hard time with food quality consistency. One time I came here everything was perfect. Another time, the yakitori had the distinctive taste of being cooked on a grill with too much flare up.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 3
Service: 4
The only reason I give this 2 stars is because of the chicken karaage and pork belly. The shiitake mushroom wasn’t even cooked, no seasoning and we didn’t even get a whole mushroom. Chicken skewer was SO BLAND and beef tongue skewer was tough and dry. The seats were uncomfortable with a 2 inch pillow and concrete beneath you. Service was good. Ambiance was meh. This place is way overrated.
Atmosphere: 2
Food: 2
Service: 4
Recommended dishes: Chicken Kara
A little disappointed… for both service and food. We called around 8:30pm to see if there would be spot available and the reception told us there should be openings around 9pm. So we came and was not able to get seated until almost 10pm. Food was served extremely slow… we finished our meal around 11:30pm. Not sure why even brining a bottle of sake took them half an hour??? And we were notified fries rice is sold out after the kitchen no longer took any order. Food wise… beef tongue is so over cooked… chicken meat is about average. The only one I would recommend is cherry bacon… rare combo but tastes good. Overall not recommended… too expensive for what you get.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 3
Service: 3