This self-described “Japanese pub” is actually the most ambitious entry of all from the restaurant group that has taken the corner of 30th and Killingsworth by storm—Beast, Fats, DOC—and turned it into the so-called “Fox-Chase Addition,” a neighborhood that aims to extend the gentrification of Alberta Avenue to the north. It’s a really enjoyable space to inhabit for an evening, and it’s a great date place, too: expanses of sleek wood, hanging pots and pans, flowing curtains, warm recessed lighting, avant-garde murals, and garagelike window panels onto a bustling street corner.

Yakuza’s minimalist, trendy, casually elegant vibe is backed by an extremely complex (and hardly publike) cuisine, which is far broader in focus than the normal izakaya—both in the sense that raw fish is emphasized, and in the sense that the menu is more pan-Asian than Japanese. A salad of Japanese cucumber, avocado, togarashi, sesame, and sugar-vinegar sushi-rice dressing—plays somewhere between an upmarket seaweed salad and Korean banchan; it’s a bit sweet, more than a bit salty, and very intense. So is “mentaiko spaghetti” (jalapeño, smelt roe, squid’s-ink noodles, and sherry). So is a lot of the menu.

Sometimes the sweetness goes a bit far, as in mackerel that’s glazed with miso and sugared up with sweet mustard vinaigrette. But other times it’s just right, as in sweet-and-sour red cabbage that’s served with pork cheek that’s first braised and then panko-breaded and fried. It feels like a reference to Czech or Hungarian pork-and-cabbage plates.

Sushi rolls are pleasurable enough, but yellowtail sashimi, which comes with a salad of herbs and daikon (radish), jalapeño oil, and ponzu sauce, comes off as a late-1990s Nobu derivative. More interesting is a plate of tuna carpaccio, chives, black peppercorns, and ponzu that play off two subtly sweet elements: silky sea urchin and “white soy ponzu.” Salt and sugar—sound familiar?

Craft cocktails employ ingredients like basil, fresh carrot juice, muddled ginger, and pink peppercorns to great effect. A “sugar snap” cocktail really distills the grassy flavor of snap peas to great effect; the vodka and lime are merely treble notes. The sake list is short but effective. There’s an argument to be made for utilizing Yakuza as a place to go for a before-dinner cocktail and snack, rather than zigzagging your way through a whole meal.