Eating Honest Wagyu Burgers at Wagyu Brothers, Asakusa

Update-Date: Aug 1, 2025

Author: Sydney Seekford

Categories: Sukiyaki Steak/Hambuger steak/Curry

Eating Honest Wagyu Burgers at Wagyu Brothers, Asakusa

We ate Wagyu Brothers’ fusion burgers for the fourth of July. It was a nostalgic taste of home with real Japanese tradition. This neighborhood burger joint, not even 100 paces from Asakusa’s main drag, creates culture-crossing soul food with U.S. hospitality and artisan omotenashi.

Sydney Seekford

Gourmet Creator

American living in Japan since 2022. Food writer and gourmet content creator for Japan’s most well known food media. Founder of menu translation and language support service MENUWIZ. Work history includes copywriting for booking platforms, video and media production and appearances, and consulting in F&B for household brands. Passionate about regional revitalization and slow tourism with a focus on local food culture.

Two home towns, one Asakusa.

It’s July fourth. Outside these walls, Asakusa buzzes like any other day. People mill around, shouting many different languages and fanning themselves in between snapping photos of Kaminarimon.

Outside The Wagyu Brothers’ second floor space, Japan is just as Japanese as ever. But as we sit under the blasting AC, sipping cola and chowing down on burgers made by a guy in a red-white-and-blue baseball cap, we can’t help feeling a little nostalgic. To make the scene that much better, it just so happens that our visit to this from-scratch wagyu burger specialty shop fell on the Fourth of July.

Chef Wataru Kikuchi, a huge fan of American culture, opened The Wagyu Brothers in November 2024 with his real-life older brother. In his 20s, Chef Kikuchi began working at izakaya, but his love of US culture bloomed in the honorable craft of burger slinging.

He’s a collector of retro American clothes, a style locally called “Ametora” (American-traditional), and a fan of American films and music. Even if you never exchanged words, Chef Kikuchi’s passion for America, LA in particular, bleeds through into the restaurant. Its hip hop soundtrack, photos of famous U.S. brothers (think Blues and Wright) and of course, the burgers themselves, are all distinctly American.

Walking into the shop, we were immediately impressed by the lingering, beefy fragrance of grilled meat overlapped with spice and citrus. On top of grilling burgers, The Wagyu Brothers also makes its own lemonade and ten-spice-blend craft cola. Chef Kikuchi monitors the flavor himself, boiling and reducing, boiling and reducing, until the syrup is just right.

When people are passionate about something, it gets infused into everything they do. Chef Kikuchi’s passion takes shape in the form of hand-chopped wagyu patties, carved from whole blocks of wagyu beef shoulder. The Wagyu Brothers purchases wagyu by the block, relying on a trusted supplier to deliver the best quality available at the time. Usually they get deliveries of brand beef, such as the Kurohana wagyu currently on offer from Kagoshima.

Even though the shop serves wagyu burgers, its hamburgers don’t suffer from the difficulty many such restaurants do. It’s too common to find wagyu burger shops with pricey, rich patties that sacrifice meaty flavor in order to maximize the succulence of marbled wagyu. The Wagyu Brothers’ homemade burgers aren’t trying to ride the smashburger trend either – they’re a regular width throughout, simply seasoned and grilled on a flat-top.

The Wagyu Brothers’ special sauce is really Chef Kikuchi’s willingness to innovate within a pattern. Today, we’re trying one of the most creative options on the menu, a sukiyaki burger. Rather than messing with greatness, the sukiyaki burger is effectively Japanese sukiyaki served on top of a burger. It emphasizes the best things about both through the common ingredient of wagyu.

To make the sukiyaki, slices of thin beef are first seared with maitake mushrooms on the grill, before simmering in a sweet-savory sauce. Eggs are cracked and separated, and just the whites are grilled, the creamy golden yolks being gingerly poured on top at the last moment.

This burger is just one way that Chef Wataru Kikuchi uses his food to offer glimpses of Japan through a lens he believes foreign visitors can cherish. Which is important for a restaurant where 95% of customers are from overseas. To make the restaurant comfortable for their clientele, a lot of thought goes in beyond the menu itself. Even the layout is designed to accommodate guests who might not prefer to be crammed into the intimacy of a ramen counter. At The Wagyu Brothers, in a space made for their comfort, visitors can taste authentic Japanese food through a familiar filter.

According to Chef Kikuchi, one of the most fun interactions is hearing customers’ surprise at the authenticity preserved in his burgers. With the sukiyaki burger, diners are enjoying a soul food of Japan and a soul food of America at once – people can deeply appreciate the chef’s home culture while feeling his love for foreign ones. Both elements are prepared with equal care to bring out their best, neither talking over the other too much.

As burger specialists, the shop uses whole grain buns with a flour blend made specifically to emphasize the flavor of wagyu. They also blend their own pickle-infused mayonnaise, and even make their own wasabi steak sauce. The fried white meat chicken served on the side of every burger is marinated in house-made buttermilk, a rare dairy almost impossible to find in Japan.

It’s dredged and fried just like we would do in the south. The spice, dry-battered crisp, and even the choice of cut (white over dark meat) is a rare taste of home in Japan. Adding the fried chicken was big-brother Kikuchi’s idea, to say thanks to customers for paying higher than average prices for a really premium burger.

The value of protecting authenticity

So often we hear restaurants proclaim, “we made this foreign dish … the Japanese way!” and serve something that is very different from the food (at least those of us from the American South) we recognise. But at The Wagyu Brothers, we weren’t served karaage that was called fried chicken – we were really served fried chicken. It’s good enough to make you wish they’d open up a sister store.

Even with such involved prep, the brothers are always innovating and creating. When an especially choice cut, such as A5 rump steak comes in, it’s transformed into an equally special burger.

At the same time, innovating within the confines of the hamburger box gives Chef Kikuchi license to create items like the Hawaii-inspired loco moco burger. This limited edition burger, designed to serve with Hawaiian brewed beer, is one part of a series. Every month they challenge themselves to create a pairing for the beer list which changes to highlight different states. This one was topped with pineapple and gravy instead of the demi-glace sauce that’s usually served with Japanese loco moco.

Like the fried chicken, this is a subtle change, but it speaks to Chef Kikuchi’s values about striking a balance between authentic Japanese food and authentic western food. Neither is taken for granted or changed beyond recognition, yet when paired together, they become a delicious union. Our chef mentioned that he sometimes feels restaurants go too far to push wagyu as a commodity. While it’s true that wagyu has a quality and flavor unmatched by any other beef, The Wagyu Brothers demonstrates that it doesn’t have to be a solo artist.

Ingredients as they are, for the better.

We loved that The Wagyu Brothers doesn’t exoticize its food or inflate its pricing just for the sake of using wagyu as a buzzword. It's a shop to eat a burger that just happens to be made of wagyu, and do so at a reasonable price. Sometimes it's a wagyu-yet-regular burger topped with real, non-simplified sukiyaki. Sometimes it’s just a very reliable burger. By approaching wagyu just as it is – a fantastic ingredient – The Wagyu Brothers honors Japanese cuisine in a way that’s honest, and in this case, very delicious, leaving diners to consider what Japan’s beef really means.

THE WAGYU BROTHERS

Open: [Tuesday-Sunday, National Holidays, Day Before National Holidays] 10:30 am - 9:00 pm (L.O. 8:30 pm)
Closed: Monday
Average price: [Dinner] 3,000 JPY
Access: 15-second walk from the Kaminarimon. Go through the Kaminarimon gate, turn left immediately, and it's on the 2nd floor of the building next to Starbucks.
Address: 2F, Endo Bldg., 1-18-3, Asakusa, Taito-ku, Tokyo Map
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Disclaimer: All information is accurate at time of publication.

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