To say that Akahoshi Ramen is one of Chicago’s best ramen joints is an understatement. The Logan Square restaurant, which opened in November 2023, is the culmination of a 14-year passion project for chef and owner Michael Satinover. Chicagoans best know him as Ramen Lord, a name that he started as a joke on Reddit and that stuck because of Satinover’s devotion to sharing his knowledge of ramen-making at home.
His legion of fans has meant that Akahoshi has been packed since the day it opened (though Satinover always encourages walk-ins). And the critical acclaim has been just as meteoric including being named one of Bon Appétit’s best new restaurants and getting a coveted three-star review from The Chicago Tribune.
Central to that success are Akahoshi’s housemade noodles and Satinover’s signature miso ramen (the restaurant only makes four kinds of ramen and one monthly special). “It’s my favorite dish on the menu and the one that means the most to me,” he says. “It’s the reason I started making ramen.”
So we’re taking you behind the scenes to see how Satinover got started and why his miso ramen is beloved.
Read on for all the details on the rise of Akahoshi Ramen, and make a booking on OpenTable.
Sapporo beginnings
After studying Japanese in high school and college, Satinover headed to Sapporo, Japan, for a semester abroad. He became obsessed with the region’s miso-style ramen to the point that he did an independent school study on it, visiting some 100 ramen shops in his year there.
Back at school in Wisconsin that all changed. “I went from having it multiple times a week to never,” Satinover says. “It didn’t exist, so the only mechanism to have it was to make it myself.”
And that’s exactly what he did, taking Redditors along for the ride in his quest to make the perfect bowl of ramen. It took him years for the ramen to not taste terrible, Satinover says, but once it did, success was nearly instantaneous. “I know I’m making ramens that I enjoy,” Satinover says. “But ultimately I have to make a ramen that I stand behind first and then hope my customers will like it too.”
Pop-ups, including in New York, quickly sold out and that eventually propelled him to open the Logan Square restaurant the day after Thanksgiving in 2023.
There’s no Akahoshi without the signature miso ramen
Glimpse past the front window, and you’ll likely see Satinover and his team working behind the wooden counter (the seven seats there are, naturally, the most coveted in the restaurant) meticulously putting together bowls of ramen. And there’s no Akahoshi for Satinover without the signature miso ramen.
The first part of the process is the soup, which starts with chicken bones, water, and aromatics. “I’m not looking for a lot of body,” Satinover says. “I’m looking for it to be fairly slurpable.” The secret is the soup’s tare, which is made with three different miso, vegetables, soy sauce, and mirin, among other ingredients, and is aged to give it added depth. A browned aromatic oil that Satinover came up with during his ramen experimenting day gives the soup its finishing touches.
The housemade noodles, however, are the stars of all of Akahoshi’s ramens, Satinover says, and the signature is no different. The restaurant makes close to 900 portions of noodles each week in a machine that Satinover imported from Japan. The noodles are aged for two days before they make it to the bowl.
“We think very thoughtfully about the right noodle for the composition of the dish,” says Satinover, who has made eight different kinds of noodles at Akahoshi since opening.
The miso ramen is filled with curly noodles before it’s topped with ingredients like bamboo shoots, fried bean sprouts, and two different kinds of torched chashu. What makes this ramen extra special is that it’s assembled in a wok and it arrives at your table within five minutes of ordering it.
“If we do our jobs well, the bowl will be compelling from the first sip to the last,” Satinover says. “Everything in this restaurant is predicated on quality and taking no shortcuts. We’re doing it because it’s the right way to do it and it’s going to taste the best.”
Lisa Shames is a writer focused on travel and food culture in Chicago. She has covered Chicago’s restaurant scene for publications including CS, Chicago Tribune, and Time Out and is the U.S. contributor for Sogoodmag.
