East City Grill & Yakiniku

Elegant Japanese screens split this Harrington Street space into two distinct approaches to fire cooking. Housed within a building constructed largely from hemp, the venue operates as a dual-concept project where the line between South African braai and Japanese technique blurs. On the East City Grill side, the kitchen manages the flame. It is a brighter room where the menu leans into local staples with specific Asian adjustments – think pumpkin fritters finished with miso caramel or a braaibroodjie stuffed with wagyu boerewors. Cross into the Yakiniku section – marked by a deep-red velvet entryway – and the lighting drops. The aesthetic shifts to dark tones and paper globes, and the cooking responsibility moves to the table. Here, you sit around a central charcoal grill. The focus is almost exclusively on Wagyu beef sourced from the owner’s Elandsberg Farms in the Swartland. You grill the sliced meat yourself, dipping it in house-made tare sauce before eating it with Koshihikari rice, kimchi, and pickles. It is an interactive, tactile process that usually follows a drink in the dedicated lounge, slowing the pace of dinner down to the speed of the coals in front of you.