Washington-based Plenty USA is set to open a new Japanese Robata Izakaya restaurant, Junkichi, situated in Seattle.
The new restaurant will treat guests to an upscale, authentic style of Japanese cuisine using a traditional live fire charcoal grill.
Scheduled to open in mid-April this year, the new restaurant is supported by the founder of Ginmasa, which is a popular Japanese robatayaki restaurant located in Ginza, Tokyo.
Junkichi general manager Nobuyuki Yoshizawa said: “I was really happy to see customers from overseas appreciating robatayaki as much as Japanese people.
“This gave me the idea to recreate a robatayaki restaurant outside of Japan.”
Robata means slow-grilling an array of fresh skewered meats, vegetables and fish over a type of pure, high carbon charcoal, known as binchotan.
Meals cooked using this Japanese grilling tradition are said to be ‘crunchy on the outside and juicy in the centre’, according to the company.
The Junkichi restaurant is also an izakaya, a type of informal Japanese bar for casual gatherings, an equivalent to American gastropubs. Junkichi offers drinks that are usually served with small ‘tapas’-style plates of food as well as a list of sake curated by a sake sommelier.
Founded in 2013, Plenty USA provides marketing services and backs its Japanese clients to expand their restaurant businesses in the US.
The company has helped promote Ramen Santouka, a Japanese noodle restaurant, across North America.
