When Yoshihiro Tsuchiya, the third-generation owner of Wakatori, revealed the secret behind his restaurant’s gold medal at the Japan Fried Chicken Grand Prix, it wasn’t what anyone expected. The answer wasn’t a special spice blend or a closely guarded recipe—it was something far more unusual: the same cooking oil, passed down and maintained continuously since the restaurant opened in 1960.
The confession sent social media into overdrive. People were horrified at the thought of eating fried chicken cooked in 66-year-old oil, convinced the restaurant was operating a culinary deathtrap. But here’s where the story gets more nuanced. Tsuchiya wasn’t lying about the oil’s age—but he also wasn’t cooking chicken in a vat that hadn’t been touched since the Kennedy administration. Every night, the kitchen staff carefully filters out meat scraps and impurities, keeps just a small amount of the aged oil as a flavor base, and tops it off with fresh oil. The technique mirrors how upscale restaurants maintain their signature broths, including Otafuku in Tokyo, which has been using the same oden soup base for over 70 years.
The appeal is real. That old oil allegedly gives Wakatori’s chicken a “complex aroma” and “unique flavor” that new oil simply can’t replicate. It’s the culinary equivalent of seasoning a cast-iron skillet—the accumulated layers of flavor from decades of use become part of the dish’s identity. But food experts aren’t buying the romance. Unlike broth, which is heated gently and repeatedly, deep frying produces harmful compounds like trans fatty acids and acrylamide with each use. Even diluting the aged oil daily with fresh batches doesn’t completely prevent the long-term buildup of these carcinogenic substances.
So we’re left with the classic tension between tradition and safety. Wakatori has won awards and built a reputation on this method—customers know what they’re getting and apparently love it. The daily filtering and fresh oil top-offs suggest the restaurant takes hygiene seriously. Yet the science warns that some risks simply can’t be mitigated through careful maintenance alone. It’s a reminder that not every culinary legend stands up to modern food safety standards, no matter how delicious the results might be.
