Creating a spark for 50 years Ichiban combines steakhouse and spectacle By: David Sanderson Posted: 1:50 PM CDT Friday, Sep. 8, 2023

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/09/2023 (1120 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Not only is it Hailey’s first visit to Ichiban Japanese Steakhouse at 189 Carlton St., it’s also the first time the 14-year-old has been in a restaurant setting where she’s been instructed by a chef, in this case Edwin Delacruz, to stand away from her chair and prepare to nab one of three eggs he is juggling in his hands.

“Is he really going to throw it?” she nervously asks her companions, who, grateful that they weren’t singled out for the chef’s shenanigans, remain seated around a flat iron griddle that dually serves as Delacruz’s stage and cooking surface.

Finally, after loudly counting out “three, two … one,” Delacruz — who has been with the downtown mainstay for 37 years — feigns throwing an egg to Hailey, only to produce a razor-sharp, 10-inch knife instead.

“Now, this is what I really want you to catch,” he announces, before quickly adding, “and here is your blindfold.”

And so it continues to go at Ichiban, which, for 50 years, has been giving new meaning to the term “dinner and a show.”

Keith Levit was 13 years old in 1973 when his father, Jack Levit, who died in 2014 at age 87, established Ichiban in tandem with Las Vegas businessman Nat Hart.

Levit, who together with his mother, Yetta, owns Lakeview Properties, which in turn oversees Ichiban, allows that he wasn’t a big fan of the teppanyaki-style dining spot when it first opened.

Sure, like any teenager, he enjoyed the pageantry of metre-tall flames and utensils flying this way and that. However, he wasn’t overly fond of mushrooms, which, served alongside fried chicken livers, have been one of Ichiban’s most popular selections since Day 1.

“My mom would always say, ‘Just try it,’ but I’d be like, ‘Yeah, no thanks,’” Levit says with a chuckle, seated in his Lakeview Square office, situated six floors above the 115-seat restaurant.

“I came around to the food, obviously, and am now constantly telling my kids that Ichiban’s salmon teriyaki is the best ever.”

The married father of four daughters says the story of how his dad, a real estate developer and hotelier, got into the restaurant biz is an interesting one.

A year after the September 1970 announcement that a “purpose-built” convention centre was going to be erected in the heart of downtown Winnipeg, the elder Levit set about constructing an office tower directly across the street from where the centre was slated to sit.

As his building was nearing completion, Levit was contacted by a local restaurateur who was interested in leasing the lower level for a project he had in mind.

The fellow told Levit he had an acquaintance in Las Vegas, the aforementioned Hart, who ran a Japanese-style steakhouse in that city’s Caesars Palace hotel.

He and Hart were interested in opening a similar venture in Winnipeg, and thought Levit’s fresh tower would be an ideal fit for what they were planning to call Ichiban, which means “No. 1” in Japanese.

Levit agreed to meet with them in person to discuss the proposal, except Hart and his counterpart argued so much during the sit-down that, in the end, Hart angrily announced he no longer wanted to team with “that man.”

He turned to Levit and said if he was still interested in having a restaurant on-site, the two of them could join forces.

“That’s how it all started,” the younger Levit says, crediting Mike Fujii, an acclaimed Tokyo-born chef his father and Hart recruited from New York City to develop the menu and train staff, for making Ichiban an immediate hit with Winnipeggers.

Aside from a sushi bar that was added to the mix in the mid-1990s, about 15 years after the elder Levit became the sole owner, not much has changed at Ichiban, which, at one point, had satellite locations in Minneapolis, Fargo, N.D., Palm Springs, Calif. and Reno, Nev., the latter of which is still going, but is no longer associated with the Winnipeg operation.

As ever, the multi-level dining room is accessed via a decorative wooden bridge that stretches above a well-tended Japanese garden.

Owing to the lively atmosphere and spirited interplay between customers and staff, Ichiban continues to be a chosen spot for anniversaries, birthdays … even engagements.

Many is the time, Levit says, when a chef has been tasked with concealing a ring inside an elaborate cocktail or, better still, a bed of fried rice prepared in the shape of a valentine heart.

And OK, maybe you’ll no longer be rubbing shoulders with the likes of Liberace or Jack Benny, two of the many stars who dropped by early on, thanks to Hart’s Nevada connections, but there is a chance you’ll run into a two-time Grammy Award winner.

Singer Justin Bieber famously chowed down there in 2011, ahead of a Winnipeg Jets game he attended with his then-girlfriend Selena Gomez.

Levit, who began working for his father in 1983, says COVID-19 definitely didn’t do Ichiban any favours.

Like other spots, they were forced to pivot by signing on with a delivery service, but he is the first to admit that, as tasty as it is, their top-seller, the Imperial Dinner (filet mignon, lobster and teriyaki chicken, served with soup, salad, veggies and dessert) loses some of its appeal when it isn’t being prepared before one’s very eyes.

“It’s still about the performance, about people, young and old, screaming over the flames and laughing at the chefs’ jokes,” he goes on.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever been downstairs when somebody hasn’t told me a story about how they used to come here with their parents or grandparents, and how they continue to come back with their own kids.”

Through the years, Levit has also been told he and his mom could probably “do better,” by converting Ichiban into an investment property of some sort.

His answer? Don’t hold your breath.

“To this day, the restaurant does better than just making ends meet,” he says, showing off a photo of his dad taken 50 years ago at the restaurant’s grand opening.

“Our feeling is that we own a legacy, more than a place to eat. As long as it’s up to us, we’ll keep ’er going forever.”

david.sanderson@winnipegfreepress.com