Beer + chicken skewers + beer. It’s a perfect formula at this north shore yakitori joint

I’ve never encountered a yakitori counter I didn’t like. Beer; skewers of grilled chicken; beer. A perfect formula. In Tokyo, yakitori restaurants can be very serious business. Some counters may only use four or five slow-grown birds a night; broken down with the skill of a sushi master and cooked over premium charcoal that can cost more than some steaks. The chef will showcase his mastery of butchery and fire across a two-hour-long tasting menu, with closely guarded tare sauce to provide complex flavour. But a yakitori counter can also be a place to crush a few sticks, neck some lager, pay and leave without thinking too much about it.

Yakitori Yurippi in Crows Nest has traded on this smash-and-go model for the past nine years, but that doesn’t mean it’s not many kinds of delicious. When Yurippi’s Falcon Street site was recently slated for demolition, the team last month moved its workhorse grills across the road and set up in the building that used to be home to Bravo Trattoria. If I lived on the north shore – and was less concerned about salt-induced hypertension – I might eat here twice a week.

The new Yurippi is bigger than the old digs, but just as lively and cosy. There are vintage Sapporo beer posters and shelves of toys that wouldn’t be out of place in a Harajuku thrift store. One third of the space is occupied by a horseshoe-shaped counter where chefs spin skewers like they’re playing in the table-football Champions League. Fat hisses. Smoke plumes. This close to the action is the best place to sit and the online reservations system lets you request a counter spot. (Where you don’t want to sit is at one of the south-wall tables, which are set up like booths but without dividers. Knocking elbows with a stranger is one thing, rubbing backs another.)

Hatena Group, led by mates Tin Jung Shea, Mitomo Somehara and Chris Wu, is the hospitality business behind Yurippi. If you’re into imported Japanese liquor, there’s a good chance you’ve been to one of their other joints, such as tiny Darlinghurst izakaya Nomidokoro Indigo or Haymarket’s karaage and highball bar Nakano Darling. There’s plenty of whisky and sake at the yakitori joint, too, plus fun cocktails and fruit-based wines, but your cru de choix should be Orion Draft Lager ($13.50 from the tap).

Orders are placed via biro and paper. Tick your skewers. Jot down a drink. Hand in the docket. You can’t go wrong with anything on a stick, but some sticks are more essential than others. I’d start with tebasaki (chicken wing butterflied to look like a crisp-skinned kite) and go from there. The tail (also known as bonjiri or parson’s nose) is collagen-rich and running with juices; knobs of liver are clean-flavoured and caramelised with a soy-based, dripping-boosted tare sauce. Most yakitori options are $9.50 for two sticks unless otherwise specified: the negima – chicken thigh and spring onion – for instance, comes in at $12. It’s about as good as thigh meat gets, although I feel as if I’m playing in the yakitori minor league by ordering it. Level up with chicken skin ($10.50), which is threaded like a crunchy, fatty accordion. If chicken oysters are offered as a $14 special, you’ll want those, too. They’re the hard-working muscles near the top of the thigh, the ones the French call sot-l’y-laisse, roughly translating to “Only a fool leaves this behind”.

There are also skewers of gizzards and cartilage and heart, and chicken tsukune meatballs (two for $15) to swipe through shimmering, slow-cooked egg. Sticks of okra (two for $8.50) with lemon-fragrant ponzu sauce and dried bonito flakes are my pick of the non-chook pursuits, followed by butter-doused scallops grilled in the shell (two for $13), a trembling omelette rolled to order ($11), and “addictive cabbage” ($11) seasoned with ultra-savoury shio kombu seaweed; it tastes like nature’s answer to Arnott’s Barbecue Shapes. I can’t tell you if the pork gyoza ($11) are any good because my group is told our 90-minute seating time is almost up and we only have time to order the nicely wobbly creme caramel ($6 – cheap!). Other small plates I’m itching to return for include the grilled onigiri rice ball ($8), vinegared octopus ($9.50) and pork jowl with yuzu pepper ($11).

Meanwhile, Hatena Group is transforming the rest of the site into Crows Nest’s very own version of Merivale’s Ivy complex, just with more noodles and less late-night dancing. Ramen Auru recently opened above Yurippi, complete with a ticket-vending machine to choose your soup and a cross-your-legs-on-the-floor tatami dining room. On the top level, sports bar Ichiro’s will begin pouring cold Suntory in the near future. Beer. Baseball. Japanese hot dogs. More beer. It sounds like another perfect formula.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine