{"id":191971,"date":"2026-02-24T21:57:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T21:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/191971\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T21:57:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T21:57:16","slug":"a-sushi-master-and-yakitori-pro-join-forces-near-union-square","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/191971\/","title":{"rendered":"A sushi master and yakitori pro join forces near Union Square"},"content":{"rendered":"

Next month, two high-profile San Francisco chefs will open the doors to a modern izakaya that feels like an alliance of equals.<\/p>\n

Called TBD, the Union Square restaurant has been in the works for the better part of three years \u2014 ever since Ray Lee relocated Akikos to the East Cut, leaving dark the Bush Street storefront where his parents first opened the omakase destination in 1987. It happened to be the same month chef Tommy Cleary closed his cult-favorite omakase restaurant, Hina Yakitori, after four years on Divisadero.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Their culinary partnership started where many modern ones do: in the DMs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cRay and I connected on Instagram,\u201d Cleary says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"TwoTommy Cleary and Ray Lee.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, before that, I think you came into Akikos,\u201d Lee says. \u201cWe had a formal introduction when you had dinner. From there, we connected over Instagram.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

TBD will serve dishes from both chefs, who are on a mission to make it the kind of ambitious but approachable restaurant that\u2019s increasingly hard to find in San Francisco. \u201cWe want our guests to spend $100, $120 per person,\u201d Lee says. \u201cWe want them to come in once a month, or once every other month \u2014 not to go to the restaurant just because they\u2019re celebrating an achievement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which does not mean they\u2019re playing it safe. Cleary\u2019s section of the menu will bring the classic yakitori for which he\u2019s known into a new era. Taking a cue from Akikos, where a procession of dry-aged nigiri sits at the heart of the omakase menu, Cleary will bring in heritage Rhode Island Red chickens and let them rest in a dry-ager for three to seven days, a process that deepens the flavor and allows the skin to get extra-crispy when grilled.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AThe exterior of TBD. | Source: Courtesy TBD <\/p>\n

Unconventionally, he won\u2019t be serving yakitori on skewers. Instead, he\u2019ll cook the various cuts of chicken over Kishu binchotan, a traditional white charcoal produced in the Wakayama prefecture, and will plate them in custom-made wooden boxes. \u201cIt\u2019s an idea I was going to head toward when I was doing Hina, toward the end,\u201d Cleary says. \u201cIt\u2019s more like what you would get at a kaiseki kind of restaurant, where each compartment is composed of a different kind of dish.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lee, meanwhile, has been working on a selection of izakaya-style small plates starring seasonal and local ingredients. There will be classics like okonomiyaki and chicken karaage \u2014 but always with a modern twist. The deep-fried chicken, for example, will arrive with the claw on, slathered in a honey-butter chilli glaze, and will be presented with a knife and fork. He\u2019ll also bring back some Akikos classics that diners haven\u2019t seen since the pandemic, including truffle agadashi tofu and souffl\u00e9 chawanmushi. There will be a selection of dry-aged sashimi and a tuna Wellington that sees blush-pink bluefin wrapped in nori and swaddled in a puff pastry shell.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"TwoHeritage chicken in a dry-ager. | Source: Courtesy of TBD<\/p>\n

As for the TBD name, Lee says it reflects both the food and the yet-to-be-finalized plans for the business. The lease on the Bush Street space runs out in five years, and Lee says they\u2019ll see how the restaurant does before deciding if they should extend, find a new home, or come up with a new concept altogether. \u201cPlus, when you have a tuna Wellington on your menu and unique ingredients that may not be Japanese \u2026 I would hate to call it fusion. I don\u2019t want to be labeled,\u201d Lee says. \u201cSo, we\u2019re just TBD. We\u2019re still figuring it out, and we\u2019re writing our story.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The chefs have yet to land on a precise date but plan to open for dinner in March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Next month, two high-profile San Francisco chefs will open the doors to a modern izakaya that feels like…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[35067,8458,8456,101,103,102,104,106,105,9972],"class_list":{"0":"post-191971","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-eat-here","9":"tag-japanese-food","10":"tag-restaurant-openings","11":"tag-san-francisco","12":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","13":"tag-san-francisco-news","14":"tag-sf","15":"tag-sf-headlines","16":"tag-sf-news","17":"tag-sushi"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}