Since 1993, the same standards.

Yamagawa opened its doors at The Plaza on Beach Road in 1993, offering a great variety of Japanese cuisine — sashimi, sushi, teppanyaki and a-la-carte dining — to a Singapore that was still discovering what Japanese fine dining could look like outside a hotel lobby.

Three decades later, little has changed in how the kitchen runs. Two teppanyaki griddles still anchor the dining room, each seating eight guests around the theatre of the grill — the hiss of the plate, the practiced economy of a chef's knife, vegetables and wagyu arranged and grilled to order in front of you.

A private tatami room offers traditional low seating for eight, shoes left at the door, for guests who want the full ceremony of a Japanese meal. For business lunches and celebratory dinners, private rooms hold anywhere from four to twenty-six guests, and a function hall accommodates gatherings of up to fifty — contemporary ambience, soothing sound, and service built for both a quiet Tuesday lunch and a fifty-guest celebration.

In the years since, that same kitchen philosophy — trust the ingredient, respect the technique — gave rise to Hatsu, a sister sushi omakase restaurant helmed by former Yamagawa chef and award-winning chef Leon Yap. Ten counter seats, one seating, and a menu that changes with what's good that day.

A timeline, not a museum

Yamagawa isn't preserved behind glass — it's still a working kitchen on the same corner it opened on.