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Ippuku

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2130 Center Berkeley, CA 94703

510-665-1969

http://www.ippukuberkeley.com

1 User review Write A Review

Critics'
Pick
Best of the New Izakayas
Award Winner 2012

2130 Center Berkeley CA 94703

Cuisine(s): Japanese

Hours: Sun-Thu 5pm-10pm, Fri-Sat 5pm-11pm

Price: $$$ $$$

Payment Types: All Major Credit Cards, cash
Attire: Casual

Features: Vegetarian Friendly

Serving: Dinner, Snack Food

Alcohol: Full bar
Reservations: Recommended

Parking: No Parking

Description

Christian Geideman, chef-owner of the Japanese yakitori restaurant and shochu bar in Berkeley, uses every molecule he can of the free-range chickens delivered to Ippuku every day. He segments the birds into their various, delicious parts and threads the meat onto skewers. The neck is particularly succulent; so are the hearts, thighs, and oyster muscles. Then he turns the rest into dishes like turnips braised with ground chicken, an exquisite chicken tartare, and ramen floating in a deep-hearted broth. What Geideman makes of the chicken - a bird bred and subdued into ignoble blandness, unloved by chefs, worthy only of nuggetization and neglect - may cause you to rethink the tuna of the land.

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mtrifiro | Berkeley, CA | 1 Reviews

5
| Sat, June 30, 2012

I love this restaurant. It has such a funky vibe and the food is really great. They stock about 100 different Japanese speciality liquors, including a great selection of Sake. They have an outdoor bar (at the restaurant entrance). I've been here three times and last night I tried (and LOVED) the chicken tartare (yes, chicken tartare).

2012 | Best of the New Izakayas

Ask anyone who's moved from Japan about San Francisco's izakaya boom and they'll roll their eyes, agreeing with you that all it seems to take to call yourself an izakaya here is to add a few skewers to your sushi menu. And then they'll interrupt the complaining to interject, Except Ippuku, of course. Christian Geideman's restaurant -- brutishly beautiful, serenely industrial -- is the product of a focus so intense it's almost, well, Japanese. He specializes in chicken in many... More »

How Safe Is Chicken Tartare? A Saga of Discovery

By Jonathan Kauffman | Thu, October 21, 2010

In the week following simultaneous restaurant reviews in the Chronicle and SF Weekly of Ippuku, a Japanese restaurant in Berkeley, the Chronicle's comments sections filled with disgust over a dish tha... More »
$This Week\'s Review: Ippuku$

This Week's Review: Ippuku

By Jonathan Kauffman | Wed, October 06, 2010

This week, I traveled to downtown Berkeley to review Ippuku, Christian Geideman's yakitori restaurant. To me, the beauty of the restaurant came from the narrowness of its focus: Geideman's menu has se... More »
Ippuku uses every part of the chicken to its best effect

By Jonathan Kauffman | Wed, October 06, 2010

View more photographs in the Ippuku slideshow. It's one thing to say that you're all for whole-animal cooking, O Pollanite, and another thing to revel in the crunchy-chewy-slippery chunks that you slip to the dog. Take a chicken carcass, for... More »