やきとり 阿部

Date chicken from a farm in Fukushima, delivered every day after being dressed the morning before, butchered in‑house by a licensed staff member and skewered cut by cut, then grilled over Kishu binchotan — dense white oak charcoal — one skewer at a time. Service runs on an order‑stop system: skewers and seasonal vegetables keep arriving until you tell the grill to stop. The house singles out liver grilled to stay rare inside, negima, chochin (the unlaid yolk with its cord) and coarse‑ground tsukune; a katsu sando closes the night for those with room.

The owner is a sommelier, and the list runs to about 200 bottles centered on Pinot Noir, with wine by the glass from ¥1,100 and ten to fifteen sake.

There is no release day. Dates open about a month ahead and are taken as they come — by phone at 03‑5422‑9834 (Tabelog also lists 050‑5596‑8277), on Tabelog, or on Hot Pepper, whose request bookings close at 17:00 the day before. For English speakers, the house’s own site links a booking page on OMAKASE. The house is closed Sundays and Mondays; on those nights younger cooks grill under the name Ura‑Abe, a separate operation with its own course, so make sure a booking is for Abe itself. Cancellations from 23:00 the night before cost ¥3,300 per person, and arriving fifteen minutes late counts as a cancellation. In a room this small, strong perfume or fabric‑softener scent can mean being turned away. Listings disagree on children — one admits elementary‑school age and up, another declines them — so confirm when booking.

The online forms take a party size and a time; what they cannot carry is a cut you would rather skip, a later start or a dietary note for the grill. Those are settled in Japanese with the house, and that is the call our desk makes.