Higebozu

Is Higebozu worth booking for yakitori in Sapporo?

Yes, it is one of the clearest yes-decisions on the Sapporo dining circuit. Higebozu has held Tabelog Bronze consecutively in 2025 and 2026, scored 4.15 on Tabelog, has appeared in the Tabelog Yakitori EAST Top 100 every year from 2023 through 2025. For a 10-seat counter restaurant in Hokkaido, that track record is hard to argue. If yakitori done at counter-dining intensity is what you are after, book this over almost anything else in the city at this price point.

What you are walking into

Higebozu operates out of the first floor of Tada Building in Chuo Ward, a five-minute walk from Exit 4 of Susukino Station on the Namboku Subway Line. The room is a U-shaped counter with 10 seats arranged around the grill. That is the entire restaurant. There are no private rooms, no secondary dining area, no tables. Every seat faces the cook and the fire, which means the format is inherently immersive: you watch the skewers move from raw to ready in real time. For food-focused travellers, that proximity to the process is a large part of what you are paying for.

The venue's own listing singles out the use of Takasaka chicken, described as the only yakitori restaurant in Hokkaido serving this breed. That claim is specific enough to take seriously, it gives Higebozu a product differentiation that most yakitori counters in the city cannot match. Pair that with a wine program the venue explicitly flags as a point of emphasis, this reads less like a neighbourhood grill and more like a specialist counter with serious sourcing ambitions. Explorers who care about provenance will find the format rewarding.

Courses run approximately two hours from a fixed start time. Two seatings are available: 18:30 and 19:30. Choose one when you book. The kitchen starts all courses simultaneously, so late arrivals join wherever the course has reached. Budget JPY 10,000 to JPY 14,999 per person at the listed average, though review-based spending data from Tabelog puts the real-world figure closer to JPY 15,000 to JPY 19,999 once drinks and the 5% service charge are included. Credit cards are accepted (Visa, Mastercard, JCB, Amex, Diners). Electronic money and QR code payments are not.

Booking logistics

Higebozu is reservation-only, the process has a meaningful barrier for first-time visitors. Phone reservations are currently suspended. New customers must book via Instagram DM, providing full name in kanji, phone number, preferred date, party size, seating time. Reservations open two months in advance on a rolling basis: January for March, February for April, so on. The cancellation policy is 100% of the course fee for any cancellation made within three days of the reservation. Factor that in before you commit. Booking difficulty is rated Easy once you are inside the two-month window and organised with the required information, but the Instagram-only process does add friction compared to standard reservation platforms.

Who this is and is not for

Higebozu works well for pairs or small groups of up to the counter capacity. Solo dining is not permitted. The minimum party size is two. The venue has a strict no-perfume and no-strong-hair-products policy that applies to all guests; violations can result in being asked to remove or leave. All guests must be 20 or older. Private room hire is not available, the space cannot be reserved for exclusive use, so there is no group buyout option. If you need a private setting for a business dinner or celebration, consider Hanakoji Sawada or Japanese cuisine Komatsu instead, both of which offer more flexible configurations for group dining needs.

For the food-focused traveller building a Sapporo itinerary around awarded dining, Higebozu fits naturally alongside Arima for sushi and aki nagao for a broader Japanese format. If you are comparing across Japan rather than just within Sapporo, the counter-only yakitori format here shares DNA with specialist counters like Harutaka in Tokyo or the chef-focused intimacy of Gion Sasaki in Kyoto, though the format and cuisine are entirely different. Higebozu's value proposition sits at a lower price point than either of those, making it one of the more accessible awarded counter experiences in Japan's north. For more on building a full Sapporo trip around dining, see our full Sapporo restaurants guide, and if you are planning accommodation, our full Sapporo hotels guide covers the options near this part of Chuo Ward.

For more on dining and drinking in this part of Sapporo, see our full Sapporo bars guide, our full Sapporo wineries guide, and our full Sapporo experiences guide. Further afield, if you are building a Japan itinerary around awarded counters, HAJIME in Osaka, Goh in Fukuoka, akordu in Nara, and 1000 in Yokohama are all worth knowing about. For reference points outside Japan, Atomix in New York City and Le Bernardin in New York City represent the same commitment to counter-level precision in a Western context.