Kuniko Yagi’s New Downtown Plan Involves Fried Chicken Sandwiches

More food news for the sprawling ROW complex in Downtown, as Kuniko Yagi has signed on for a new fried chicken space not far from Rappahannock, Paramount Coffee Project, and all the other restaurants starting to come online.

The new Yagi project is to be called Pikunico. It’s a name that has been bandied about by Yagi for some time, but only really got announced as landing at the ROW earlier this year. There’s even a landing page on the ROW’s own website for the project, and it says the menu will focus on “fried kara-age chicken, fresh and earthy sides, picnic sandwiches and salads, and local beer, wine, coffee and tea.” Eater reached out to Yagi directly for more details, but so far hasn’t heard back.

Pikunico will be Yagi’s first standalone restaurant project since leaving Hinoki & the Bird back in 2014. She has consulted a ton in the interim and had plans to work on a Downtown diner called Tokyo Strike at one point, but is now focusing her energy on bento pop-ups and all things fried chicken. There’s no firm timeline for opening, but the space is in construction and while the restaurant’s Instagram hasn’t updated since February they do point to a June arrival. More on this as it comes.

Pikunico
777 S. Alameda St.
Los Angeles, CA

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