Mitsuo Endo’s New Toridokoro Raku Focuses on All Things Chicken Cooked on a Robata Grill

Toridokoro Raku, a chicken-focused robata grill from Mitsuo Endo of Raku fame, opened earlier this month inside the former Tatsujin X space near the Palms. While the small venue focuses on chicken yakitori dishes, it does feature a chef’s tasting menu for $75, or a premium version for $80 per person, along with a roster of sakes.

Dishes that can be ordered individually include items from the robata grill such chicken heart, cartilage, gizzard, liver, neck, tail, breast with skin, and wing in the $4 to $5 each. The menu includes vegetable dishes as well with onion, sweet potato, pumpkin, or mushroom, each for $2.50 to $30. The robata kitchen includes a bar in front where diners can watch the action.

Back in 2018, Endo planned to open a teppan grill dubbed Teppan By Raku in a strip mall next to the Palms, suggesting a future menu focused and prepared on a flat, iron griddle. That restaurant became Tatsujin X, a teppanyaki grill with an omakase-style menu that opened last March and closed in February. Endo took over the space and converted it into Toridokoro Raku.

Toridokoro Raku marks the third local outpost for the Raku team. Chinatown’s acclaimed Raku, the charcoal grill house that opened a new omakase room last summer, specializes in robata dishes. Endo opened the restaurant in 2008 and went on to earn five semifinalist nods from the James Beard Foundation for Best Chef Southwest from 2011 to 2015 and a semifinalist bid for Best New Restaurant in 2009. The stalwart restaurant is on the Eater 38.

The highly inventive Sweets Raku debuted a short walk from Raku in 2013, continuing the reputation of the Seoul Plaza on Spring Mountain Road as a beacon of culinary creativity. A California expansion for the main restaurant to West Hollywood followed in 2015.

The new Toridokoro Raku sits in the Flamingo Arville Plaza at the intersection of Flamingo Road and Arville Street.

Toridokoro Raku, 4439 W. Flamingo Road, 702-337-6233. Open Monday through Saturday from 6 p.m. to midnight.

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