Teppen Ekkamai is the original flagship of the Teppen Thailand group, open on Sukhumvit 61 since June 2013 and still one of the loudest, most theatrical izakaya rooms in the city. The concept is called Food Entertainment: cooks call out orders at full volume across the open kitchen, staff respond in unison, and flames leap from burning rice straw every few minutes. It is a Japanese izakaya restaurant in Ekkamai, Bangkok that treats dinner as performance without sliding into gimmick.
The grill program is the draw. Warayaki straw-fire searing handles fish and wagyu over tall, fast flames that char the outside in seconds and leave the center almost raw. Alongside that, there's a robatayaki charcoal section and a Kyoto-style kushiage fryer, so a single table can work through three distinct Japanese cooking traditions in one sitting. The group has since expanded with a Sathorn sister branch and spin-offs Omakase Don by Teppen and TOUKA in Silom, but Ekkamai remains the room where the format was built.
You walk into a wood-heavy Tokyo tavern interior: dark timber, exposed beams, hand-written paper menus on the walls, and a long counter that faces the open kitchen where the warayaki action happens. There is outdoor seating at the front if you want a slightly quieter table, but most of the energy lives inside. Expect to be greeted with a shouted welcome from the full floor team, and expect the same treatment every time a big order fires or a guest walks past the grill.
Service runs at izakaya pace, which means drinks arrive fast and food comes in waves rather than courses. The crowd is a mix of Japanese expats, Thai regulars, and Ekkamai locals who have been coming for years, and it fills up hard from around 7pm onward through to the midnight close. Book ahead on weekends, especially if you want counter seats for the straw-fire view.
The Warayaki Fish is the signature move, flame-seared over burning rice straws right at the open kitchen so the skin chars and the flesh stays barely cooked through. Order the Gyutan Block Warayaki if you want to see the full show on protein: a 200g block of wagyu beef tongue hit with the same straw flames and sliced at the pass. Wagyu Yakisuki arrives as thin sheets of wagyu cooked sukiyaki-style in a sweet soy broth at the table, a calmer counterpart to the grill theatrics. From the Kyoto fryer, the Kushiage skewers come out in small batches, crumbed and crisp, meant to be paired with one of the house highballs. Regulars also call out the charcoal-grilled eggplant, a simple robata plate that keeps showing up in reviews as a must-order side.
Teppen Ekkamai sits on Sukhumvit 61, a short walk from BTS Ekkamai exit 1, tucked just off the main Ekkamai strip on the Thong Lor side. Taxis know it by name, and there is street-side parking along Soi 61 if you drive.
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