The First Details About Jesse Ito’s New ’80s-Inspired Izakaya

Photography courtesy of dancerobot

Every night at Royal Sushi and Izakaya was a party. It was like that every single night for years. 5 p.m. to 2 a.m., non-stop, always loud, always crowded. And even though the hours have changed since the pandemic (it operates 5pm-10pm on the weekdays now, until 11pm on the weekends, and the staff takes Mondays off), in front, the izakaya is still all octopus balls and pull-tab cans of sake. In back, a reverential sushi bar offering an incomparable omakase that started serving its multi-course, prix fixe menu long before this current moment where it seems like every restaurant is offering some kind of omakase “experience.”

I wrote about Royal back in 2017, at the long peak of its popularity, at the point when chef Jesse Ito (who ran the omakase nightly with his dad, Massaharu) was just beginning to collect a long string of James Beard Award nominations (seven at last count). It was my favorite review in what was kind of a bleak run of technically-impressive-but-way-too-safe big-name openings in and around Philly — a weird, lagging year in our perpetual boom where it seemed like everyone had a restaurant (or two, or three) that they wanted you to go to, but they were all versions of the same restaurant.

Royal was nothing like any of them. It served unapologetically Japanese bar food in front — monkfish liver with yuzu, skate wing jerky, gyoza, shumai with hot mustard — to an AC/DC soundtrack and anime projected on the wall. In back, Jesse and his father presided over a handful of seats that were among the hardest in the city to get. Even early on a Wednesday night, you could wait weeks for a seat, which I know because I did.

Then came the pandemic. Then came complications. Jesse (who’d started cooking at Fuji, his parents’ restaurant in Cinnaminson, at 14), scaled back, switched to takeout, got sober, and talked about all of it with Hannah Albertine in a great interview back in 2022. It was in that same interview that he teased “a couple things that I’d be passionate about,” but swore he wasn’t looking to expand. That he was just focusing on staying clean, staying healthy, and focusing on himself and his life for “the next few years.”

Turns out, that second part wasn’t entirely true.

Because we just got word that Jesse is absolutely picking up a second location. He’s already picked up a space — the old Foodery location at 1710 Sansom Street — and while there’s not a ton of details yet, I do know it’s going to be another izakaya-style project, focusing on Japanese classics and modern interpretations of Japanese comfort food. Oh, and also that it’s going to be called dancerobot (you can follow Ito’s new restaurant here on Instagram).

dancerobot logo

“The name just came to me,” according to Jesse. “The restaurant will be a fun, high-energy izakaya. The name captures that feeling, and it’s a little bit inspired by ’80s Japan.”

So basically right in the center of my geeky little food-nerd heart, which I appreciate.

Jesse’s long-time right-hand man at Royal, Justin Bacharach, will be leading the kitchen at dancerobot (where he’ll also be a partner), and while the menu is (obviously) still coming together, there is an idea of what it’ll look like. We’re talking simple katsu curry, hamburger steak with demi and wasabi mashed potato, and mentaiko pasta — which is kinda like a Japanese interpretation of American comfort food. Think spaghetti with pollock roe, butter and soy sauce and you’re in the ballpark. Plus, dancerobot is going to be doing brunch, making it one of the very few restaurants offering Japanese breakfast foods like teishoku, Japanese pancakes, homemade milk bread toasts, kinpira gobu, and breakfast-y yaki onigiri.

Right now, they’re looking at a spring (or possibly summer) opening in 2025. And you can be sure that I’m going to be keeping a close eye on this one as it progresses.