Koyote
Hiro Tagai brines the karaage wings for sixty hours, then fries them twice in potato starch so the coating shatters rather than batters.
Why go
Tagai was born in Tokyo, ran the kitchen at Park City's Happy Sumo for a decade, then went back to Japan to work in ramen shops and attend ramen school (Gastronomic SLC). He helped open the Sapa Group's Purgatory and cooked at HSL before he and Felipe Oliveira took this Marmalade room in January 2024. Oliveira runs the front, by way of Per Noi Trattoria and Valter Nassi's Osteria.
The stocks are the argument. The American shoyu sits on a ten-hour chicken and pork broth, with brisket smoked in house and then set in beef tallow, and an ajitama boiled to a fixed time and temperature and left to marinate for days until the yolk goes custardy. The tonkotsu tsukemen takes forty-eight hours and comes out thick enough that the broth is served on the side to dip into. The chashu in the tantan-men is pork belly marinated two days and cooked most of another.
Vegetables arrive weekly from Japanese farms in California, which is where the naga negi, the mizuna, the kyuri and the purple shiso on these plates come from.
Stuart Melling, who takes no money from this room, described the first meal as leaving him lost for words, and he does not write like that about openings.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the American shoyu ramen, for the smoked brisket and the egg.1
- Order: the shioyaki saba, torched at the pass and deboned, with grated daikon and ponzu. Melling calls it the best version he has eaten in Utah.1
- Order: the karaage wings, four to a plate.1
- Avoid: waiting for a server to take your order. You scan a code and order from your phone, which Willden notes will disappoint anybody who wanted the conversation.2
What locals & experts say
- Stuart Melling, Gastronomic SLC:
This my friends is Oscar-worthy cooking, exceptional stuff.
1 - Melling, on the broth:
It's utterly mesmerizing. From the fractally hypnotic oils that lacquer the surface, through to the soulful, savory depth.
1 - Jenny Willden, The Infatuation:
If you enjoy interacting with your server, you may be disappointed by the iPad ordering system, but it does ensure your dishes are delivered in a hurry.
2
Good to know
- What it cost at opening: the ramen bowls ran thirteen to fourteen dollars in January 2024, the saba twelve and the wings nine.
- Where: 551 West 400 North, in Marmalade, north-west of downtown.
- Ordering: by phone, from a code on the table, with a tab you close at the end.
- The spelling: the restaurant writes itself Koyote. One write-up gives it an acute accent.
Verdict
should-visit — Hiro Tagai ran Happy Sumo in Park City for a decade, then went to Japan to work ramen shops and attend ramen school before opening this. The process is where it shows: a sixty-hour brine on the wings, a ten-hour stock under the shoyu, a dipping broth that takes two days, and vegetables flown in weekly from Japanese farms in California. MICHELIN listed it as Recommended in the first Southwest guide. Stuart Melling, who is not paid by this room, said he was lost for words at the first meal, and that is the most enthusiastic sentence he has written about any Salt Lake opening.