Counter seating, an intentionally selected sake list of 20 to 30 varieties, and Japanese izakaya cooking that rewards solo diners who know the quiet pleasure of eating exceptionally well and entirely alone.
The Full Picture
The team behind Hachiroku built their Connecticut reputation one Japanese concept at a time: Brooklyn Ramen in New Haven, a bento box business that ran through the pandemic, Japanese sushi counters tied to the Maruichi grocery operation across Connecticut and into Boston. Yuta Kamori, Sanae Kamori, Gen Hashimoto and Hiroyuki Fuji knew how to execute. What they opened on Orange Street in May 2022 was something more intentional than another outpost — it was a genuine izakaya, built around the Japanese tradition of small plates and serious drinking designed for evenings that have no fixed endpoint.
The izakaya format is not well understood in American dining culture. It is not a tapas bar with Japanese food, not a sushi restaurant that happens to serve cocktails, not a casual spot in the way American casual restaurants are casual. It is a specific register: the food is precise and small, the drinks are considered and sequenced, and the experience is built for a kind of relaxed intensity that requires a kitchen and a bar to work in genuine concert. At Hachiroku, they do.
The miso-cured grilled black cod is the dish that reveals what the kitchen can do with patience — the fish marinated long enough that the salt and umami have penetrated the flesh, the grill caramelising the surface into something that manages to be simultaneously delicate and emphatic. The American Wagyu Beef Curry Rice is the comfort-food proof of concept: Japanese curry technique applied to American beef, the result richer and more complex than either tradition produces alone. The Shio Koji Tori Kara, the sake-marinated Japanese fried chicken, is the bar snack that makes you realise this kitchen is serious about its casual dishes.
The sake program sets Hachiroku apart from every other Japanese restaurant in Connecticut. Between 20 and 30 varieties available at any time, served in flights or by the glass, with a staff trained to explain the distinctions between junmai, ginjo and daiginjo without condescension. Japanese whisky and wine complete the beverage offering for those who come not for sake but for the kitchen. The room on Orange Street is sleek without being cold, the counter seating inviting the kind of conversation with the kitchen that sharpens solo dining from solitary eating into something genuinely pleasurable.
Why Hachiroku Is Perfect for Solo Dining
The counter is the heart of Hachiroku, and it was designed for the solo diner who understands that eating alone at a great restaurant is not a consolation but a choice. Counter seating at an izakaya creates a direct relationship between the diner and the kitchen — you watch the miso-cured cod come off the grill, you understand the care that went into the curry, you can ask the right question about whether the sake you are drinking is a junmai or something more fragrant. The solo diner becomes part of the experience rather than an awkward presence at a two-top. The sake flights give a solo evening structure and progression that a solo dinner at a conventional restaurant lacks. Order three or four small plates and a sake flight, sit at the counter, and spend two hours eating exceptionally well. This is what solo dining is supposed to feel like.