Pitch perfect

Did you know you can get high-quality sashimi and izakaya-style dishes at a sports bar?

Yes, you read that correctly.

Pitch Sports Bar, located in SALT at Our Kakaako, is known for its crave-worthy comfort food, ranging from truffle tots, kalbi poutine and miso garlic bacon fried rice to salt and vinegar chicken, crispy ginger pork chops and yuzu kosho butter rib-eye steak. But since last year, the sports bar started serving up premium cuts of unique fish with the addition of chef Jon Tamashiro to the team.

“When I first started last April, the sports bar was already redoing its core menu,” says Tamashiro, who’s also the sport bar’s newest managing partner. “Prior to this, I was running a small izakaya in Pearl Kai Shopping Center called Izakaya Kei. I did that for about for years, but then COVID shut us down.

“After I learned the core menu, Pitch gave me free reign to do a specials board,” he adds. “They never had sushi and izakaya-style dishes before.”

With Tamashiro on board, managing partners Adam Kuwasaki and Zenn Inouye saw the opportunity to make their sports bar even more unique. Kuwasaki — who says he’s known Tamashiro since they were 17 years old — recalls how Pitch revamped its menu completely during the lockdown last year.

“We had (local celebrity chef) Grant Kawasaki come in and design the whole menu for us,” Kuwasaki says. “Ever since we reopened for dine-in, it’s been doing really well.”

“Grant created it from scratch for us,” Inouye adds. “I don’t know many sports bars that do a rib-eye katsu.”

Popular items from the regular menu include the aforementioned rib-eye steak katsu with tonkatsu sauce, barbecue brisket — which features an eight-hour slow-cooked beef brisket with mushrooms, onions and duet of barbecue sauces — and a kaisen bowl, similar to chirashi, with gorgeous pieces of ika, maguro, hamachi, tako and ebi topped with amaebi, hotate, uni and ikura. But if you look to the far left of the bar, you’ll see a dry-erase board with specials written in fluorescent ink. That’s where Tamashiro shines.

“If I see something on sale with my vendor, or there’s an excess of something they’re trying to get rid of, I’ll get it and try to think of something to make with it,” he explains. “Japanese fish comes in every Tuesday and Thursday; I have two vendors from Toyosu Fish Market, the fish center hub that took the place of Tsukiji. Toyosu pulls fish from almost every prefecture of Japan.”

This explains why specials change every week. Tamashiro says the chef’s choice (market price) is always popular. On this particular visit, it includes generous cuts of black sea bream, chutoro (blue fin), Hokkaido scallops, bigeye tuna, ora king salmon, Japanese butterfish, premium hamachi and more.

“Some of the fish we get is more unique,” Tamashiro says. “I have good vendors; they’ll call their contacts from Japan, so I’ll get rare things. I learned a lot about Japanese fish over the last four years, while I was at the izakaya. I spent a lot of time looking up seasonal fish.”

If you want something that isn’t raw, but equally delicious, order one of the risottos (if they’re on the menu). The snow crab risotto — featuring dashi-base stock, Parmesan cheese, snow crab and Hokkaido scallops folded into the mixture and topped with a snow crab leg and ikura with truffle pâté — is a customer favorite. Other popular specials Tamashiro previously ran include mentaiko pasta — angel hair noodles folded with mentaiko and truffle pâté and topped with a jidori egg — oyako don, taco rice and natto donburi. Tamashiro says a lot of people still don’t know sushi specials exist at Pitch Sports Bar, but word is slowly spreading.

“Originally, when I started last year, I didn’t know if I was going to stay here that long,” Tamashiro says. “But they want me long term so we’re looking to expand the menu more in the sushi area. If you follow Pitch Sports Bar on Instagram (@pitchsportsbar), we’ll announce the specials there.”

“Stay tuned — we have some exciting news coming,” Kuwasaki adds.

Pitch Sports Bar

SALT at Our Kakaako,
second floor
685 Auahi St. Ste. 216-217
808-379-2550
pitchsportsbar.com/store
Instagram: @pitchsportsbar
11 a.m.-12 a.m. daily