After transforming from an upscale Los Angeles burger restaurant to a fast food joint in Japan, Umami Burger is still good and novel, but no longer great.
Umami Burger leans into umami ingredients like shiitake and parmesan. They have a good “Cali” burger too, that attempts to scratch an In-N-Out itch, which admittedly is more novel in Tokyo than it would be in Los Angeles. Their burgers are generally more unique than other chains in Japan.
It feels cheaper than it used to, but still costs as much as it used to. Like Shake Shack, it’s too greasy, and super messy if you don’t use the paper wrapper. Heck, it’s messy even with the paper wrapper.
I’m confident that the quality of the remaining one or two LA locations has likely completely withered, making Tokyo the only place you can get something that resembles what California’s Umami Burger once was.
This is super strange to write about, because the Umami Burger that I once knew is long gone. What was a nice restaurant in San Francisco—only 20 minutes from my apartment by bus—is now basically a Tokyo-only fast food chain—with a location only 20 minutes away from my apartment by train.
It’s unbelievable just how much changed in 15 years to allow this very specific coincidence to occur, and I must be one of very few people who has ever had both to compare.
Umami Burger was very different in 2011. It was a proper restaurant, with servers, a bar, and a novel Japanese theme. When it originally opened, it commanded a one-hour wait. The condiments (Umami Ketchup, Dijon Mustard, House Spread, Roasted Garlic Aioli, and Jalapeño Ranch) came in ramen spoons. A burger + fries + drink set was called a “kombu” meal (a play on “combo,” a confusing pun if in Japan). A white katana was on display at the entrance.
Now, it nearly-exclusively exists as a small fast food chain in Japan and maybe a small operation in LA. It’s really hard to say what’s going on with the remaining US locations, because the last post on social media was more than a year ago and all of their locations in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Chicago, and New York seem to have permanently closed, but there are still a couple operational in Los Angeles and four in Japan, though they seem related in name and logo only.
It’s actually very confusing as to what’s going on, because the US website is outdated and potentially compromised. The menu on the US website links to a gambling scam. I’m not even sure the two locations in LA are related to each other.
It’s a sad story, but one we’ve become all too familiar with. In 2011, when Umami expanded to San Francisco, a nightclub company (??) called SBE purchased a stake in the company, which later acquired a majority stake in 2016. The new CEO expanded a shadow of its original concept to other regions while the former locations seem to have wasted away.
Rather than let it be, and evolve over time, someone got greedy and ruined it.
This really used to be what I would consider a three-star burger, and it’s a shame what’s happened. It’s still good, if you find yourself in Tokyo. But I fear it may be short-lived.