Beef Kin

There are a few things you need to know about Takumi Kinra. His first job was as a waitstaff at a yakiniku joint in Osaka. He saw his first whole-cow butchering at a beef specialty store. And he likes to work alone. So when Takumi Kinra opened Beef Kin in Sapporo, one of Japan’s northernmost cities, in 2022, he chose to keep most of the prep work in his own hands. It’s not that Takumi is a solitary man — in fact, the liveliness of his kitchen and the bustling atmosphere of his restaurant suggest otherwise — but when it comes to butchering meat, he prefers to handle it himself. As a steakhouse, the idea behind Beef Kin is to steer away from the convention of meat as the exclusive item for teppanyaki and yakiniku, and approach it through a more Western lens. Takumi is particularly devoted to using Ikeda beef from Tokachi, a breed of Japanese Red cattle known for its leaner meat and lower fat content — quite the contrast from the rich, fatty kind you usually expect. But it’s this very structure that makes his hamburgers, the star dish of his restaurant, so brilliant. The ground meat is coarsely minced by hand and shaped into thick, round patties, while for steaks, Takumi debones the cut just before it hits the pan. Takumi’s health-conscious approach doesn’t stop there. To make his meals gluten-free, he swaps wheat with alternatives. The bread, baked in-house and served as part of the set, is made with domestic rice flour, as are the pasta and desserts. Even the soy sauce is made from locally grown soybeans and sun-dried salt.