Tokyo Bird

Tucked down a Surry Hills laneway off Commonwealth Street, this narrow izakaya makes its case with charcoal and whisky in roughly equal measure. The grill turns out yakitori in the classical idiom, threaded and cooked to order: thigh and shallot glossed in soy tare, tenderloin brightened with yuzu kosho, chicken wings dusted with shichimi, and a tsukune of minced chicken crowned with a cured egg yolk to break over it. Skin, hearts and the less-fashionable cuts get their due too, in the spirit of a bird used nose to tail. What sets the room apart is the back bar, one of the city's more serious collections of Japanese whisky, poured alongside a short list of cocktails that lean on yuzu and Japanese spirits. The mood is low-lit and cheerfully unserious, Studio Ghibli stills on the walls setting a tone somewhere between neighbourhood drinking den and shrine to a particular kind of Tokyo nightlife. It is the sort of place designed for a long, grazing evening, a few sticks, a dram, another few sticks, rather than a set meal. Small, dark and single-minded about its two obsessions, it reads as an honest transplant of the after-work izakaya, laneway address and all.