Hibachi Grill

The History of Hibachi Cooking

The word most Americans use for this dinner is, strictly speaking, the wrong one — and the story of how that happened explains why the chef performs.

A hibachi is a heater, not a grill

The Japanese word hibachi (火郗) breaks down as hi, fire, and bachi, bowl. It is an open-topped ceramic or metal container that holds burning charcoal, and for centuries it was a piece of household furniture used to heat a room, warm hands and boil a kettle. Some were plain earthenware; others were carved hardwood with copper linings and were handed down through families. Food might be toasted over one, but nobody was searing filet mignon on it.

Teppanyaki: the iron plate

What happens at our restaurant is teppanyaki — teppan, iron plate, and yaki, grilled or pan-fried. The format is more recent than most guests assume. It is generally traced to Misono, which opened in Kobe in 1945 and cooked Western-style beef on a flat steel griddle in front of diners.

The audience it found first was foreign. Japanese guests at the time were not accustomed to eating that much beef, and the restaurant's popularity came largely from visitors and American servicemen who recognized the steak and were fascinated by watching it cooked. That detail matters: teppanyaki was a cross-cultural format from its first day.

How it became "hibachi" in America

Teppanyaki arrived in the United States in 1964, when Benihana opened in New York. American diners were already using the word "hibachi" for the small charcoal grills sold for backyard cooking, so when they encountered a Japanese restaurant grilling in front of them, the familiar word attached itself to the unfamiliar format and never came off.

The showmanship followed for the same reason. The onion volcano, the shrimp tail flicked into a chef's pocket, the egg juggled on a spatula, the rhythmic knife-on-griddle percussion — these were developed and refined in American dining rooms, not inherited from Kobe. They exist because a twenty-minute cook time in full view of the table is either theater or an awkward silence.

What the chef is actually doing

Underneath the performance is real technique. A teppan holds a broad, even, high heat that a home range cannot reach, and the chef is managing several proteins with different cooking times on one surface at once — starting the vegetables and rice early, holding steak at temperature at a cooler edge of the plate, timing scallops so they arrive at the same moment as the filet. Everything is cut on the griddle, so the knife work is portioning and heat control at the same time.

It is also the most transparent cooking in any restaurant. There is no kitchen door. You see the cut of beef before it is seared, you see how long it stays on the plate, and you see it go from the griddle onto your dish. That is why sourcing matters more here than almost anywhere else, and why our filet mignon, strip steak and ribeye come from Georgia Hereford cattle and Georgia ranchers.

What to expect at the table

• You may share the grill. A hibachi table seats around eight to ten guests, so smaller parties are often seated together. Many guests find that half the fun.
• Soup and salad arrive first, while the chef is setting up and bringing the plate to temperature.
• The vegetables and rice cook before the protein, so a lull mid-meal is normal — the steak is being timed to finish last.
• The show runs about twenty minutes. Budget more time overall than for a standard dinner.
• Ask for your steak temperature up front. On a griddle this hot, a minute is the difference between medium-rare and medium.