There are only two fail-safe ways to get through a Tokyo heatwave summer. One is to head for the hills, or anywhere else the nights are cool. The other is to self-medicate. Sake does the trick perfectly, especially when matched with good yakitori. That calls for an evening at Toritama.

These days, this well loved yakitoriya has three branches to choose from. Each has been around long enough to have developed its own distinct character and enthusiastic following. But for many longtime Tokyo residents, it is still the original restaurant (Toritama Honkan) on the intersection between Ebisu and Shirokane that they think of, and head to, first.

Tucked in self-effacingly under an expressway overpass, and too far from the nearest station to contemplate walking there at any time of year, it is certainly not the ritziest or most convenient locale. In fact, when Toritama first opened some two decades ago, the area was so down-at-heel it felt like walking off the map. And therein lay much of its cachet: It was a place for those in the know.