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Tokyo is undoubtedly one of the most exciting dining cities in the world. Seasonal ingredients reign supreme here, and there's an emphasis on freshness—not surprising given raw seafood is the cornerstone of sushi. And though Tokyoites still stubbornly resist foreign concepts in many fields, the locals have embraced outside culinary styles with gusto.
While newer restaurants targeting younger diners strive for authenticity in everything from New York–style bagels to Neapolitan pizza, it is still not uncommon to see menus serving East-meets-West concoctions such as spaghetti topped with cod roe and shredded seaweed. That said, the city’s best French and Italian establishments can hold their own on a global scale. Naturally, there's also excellent Japanese cuisine available throughout the city, ranging from the traditional to nouveau, which can be shockingly expensive.
That is not to imply that every meal in the city will drain your finances—the current rage is all about "B-kyu gurume" (B-class gourmet), restaurants that fill the gap between nationwide chains and fine cuisine, serving tasty Japanese and Asian food without the extra frills of tablecloths and lacquerware. All department stores and most skyscrapers have at least one floor of restaurants that are accessible, affordable, and reputable.
Asakusa is known for its tempura, and Tsukiji prides itself on its fresh sashimi, which is available in excellent quality throughout the city. Ramen is a passion for many locals, who travel across town or stand in line for an hour in order to sit at the counter of a shop rumored to have the perfect balance of noodles and broth. Even the neighborhood convenience stores will offer colorful salads, sandwiches, and a selection of beer and sake. There have been good and affordable Indian and Chinese restaurants in the city for decades. As a result of increased travel by the Japanese to more exotic locations, Thai, Vietnamese, and Turkish restaurants have popped up around the city. When in doubt, note that Tokyo's top-rated international hotels also have some of the city's best places to eat and drink.
On top of the Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo at Otemachi, this Michelin-starred restaurant serves contemporary French cuisine with a Japanese twist. Est emphasizes reducing food waste and offers eco-conscious, seasonal menus with 95% of ingredients gathered from Japan, so Chef Guillaume Bracaval's innovative dishes can be traced from source to plate.
Quick and easy plant-based food isn't always easy to come by in Tokyo, but this small spot serves up excellent vegan fast food—namely, falafel, veggies burgers, and plant-based brownies. Most customers buy takeout, but there are a few tables, plus craft beers and coffee on the menu, if you fancy lingering. There's also a branch in Shibuya.
At the northern end of the izakaya-lined Hoppy Street (a few blocks west of Senso-ji), this hip Scandinavian-style café serves up sweet and savory Norwegian waffles along with coffee made using single-origin beans. In the evenings, there are craft beers and cocktails on the menu, too.
Preparing wagashi (traditional Japanese sweets generally served with tea) since 1907, the main branch (out of six) of Fukagawa Iseya is less than a five-minute walk from Tomioka Hachiman Shrine. Popular choices include mitarashi dango (skewers of small rice balls covered in a sweet soy glaze) and daifuku (mounds of mochi filled with Hokkaido red bean paste). Unlike many other wagashi shops, Fukagawa Iseya has a small café next door.
Kamasho serves the area's traditional signature dish, Fukagawa-meshi—short-neck clams and green onion cooked in a miso broth and poured over a bowl of rice. You can order just a bowl of it or, if you're really hungry, a set meal with a side serving of pickles and miso soup or some sushi. Drinks ranging from beer and umeshu (plum wine) to shochu and nihonshu are also available.
Amid a sea of dilapidated buildings, thin-crust pizza specialist Garage 50 stands out for its retro camper van equipped with a brick-oven. Numerous toppings—from seafood to ham or chorizo—are available, and all the pies cost the same. The tomato sauce and wheat are imported from Italy, adding an extra layer of authenticity to the no-frills eatery. Seating is limited and all of it is outside, but takeout orders are also possible.
This lunch-only restaurant not far from the Kabuki-za Theater has received a Michelin Bib Gourmand for its subtle take on ramen. The key is the soup, which foregoes soy for a light broth that takes inspiration from consommé, using vegetables, duck, chicken, and sea salt. The noodles are then topped with juicy slices of chaa-shu pork.
Located in Shibuya's Tokyu Department Store, Tenichi is an accessible and relaxed tempura restaurant. The best seats are at the counter, where you can see the chefs work and each piece of tempura will be served piping hot, directly from the oil. The restaurant's simple, brightly lit interior keeps the focus on the food itself. Choose from a selection of ten-don (tempura served with sauce over a bowl of rice) or tempura sets. The more expensive tempura meals are available at the counter only.
Having started as a street stall in Ogikubo in the late 1940s, Harukiya is now a ramenya (ramen restaurant) that often has patrons lining up along the street. The noodles are freshly made by hand every morning, come in a soy and niboshi (dried sardine)–based stock, and are served with a topping of chashu (roast pork).
At this all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant, offerings change with the season to highlight the freshest flavors the country has to offer. Options skew heavily toward Japanese favorites, and you can taste the quality in every bite. Weekends can get busy, so it's best to come on a weekday at around opening time.
A short walk from the Imperial Hotel, the Hibiya branch of one of Yokohama's oldest and best Chinese restaurants commands a spectacular view of the Imperial Palace grounds from 28 floors up. Call ahead to reserve a table by the window. Much of the clientele comes from the law offices, securities firms, and foreign banks in the building.
Sushi restaurants can be expensive, but a rock-bottom alternative is an assembly line–style kaiten-zushi, where chefs inside a circular counter put sushi on plates color-coded for price onto a revolving belt, you choose what you'd like as it passes, and a staffer counts up the plates and calculates the bill when you're done. It's all about the fresh fish—and clearly not about the interior design—at this bustling branch of a kaiten-zushi chain opposite Omotesando Hills. The cheapest prices are reserved for staples like tuna and squid; you'll pay a bit more for delicacies like high-grade toro cuts of tuna and sea urchin.
Perched on the 46th floor of the Carretta Shiodome Building overlooking Tokyo Bay, this seafood-focused izakaya is a nice escape from the chaotic frenzy below. Specialties include grilled fish and house-made tofu. As the name suggests, Suntory's highly rated Hibiki whiskey is also on the menu, along with wines and sake that pair well with the food.
After strolling through the flower gardens of Hibiya Park on a hot day, stop off for a cold pint of beer here. There's no indoor seating, but with its view of Hibiya Park, you wouldn't want to be inside.
Every so often, even on foreign shores, you've got to have a burger, and the Swiss-and-bacon special at Homework's is an incomparably better choice than anything you can get at one of the global chains. Hamburgers come in three sizes on white or wheat buns, with a variety of toppings. You also find hot teriyaki chicken sandwiches, pastrami sandwiches, and vegetarian options like a soybean veggie burger or a grilled eggplant sandwich. With its hardwood banquettes and French doors open to the street in good weather, Homework's is a pleasant place to linger over lunch. There is also a branch in Hiroo.
At Ueno Station is a branch of a raman restaurant chain that has an amusing way of servings its noodles. First, you select your seat and choose and pay for your meal, and then, after you sit down, like magic, a window opens and the food appears. All the seats are individual, in theory so that you can concentrate on the flavors, making this a place you come to for the food rather than for conversation.
Soba noodles, which are made from buckwheat, are a signature of the restaurants along the bucolic monzen-machi approach to Jindai-ji temple, perhaps because buckwheat was traditionally easier to grow in this area than rice. Here, toppings for the handmade soba, which is served in a variety of ways—including in warm broths or cold with a dipping sauce—change according to the season.
Open from 11 am to 11 pm, this ever-busy ramen joint, now an international chain with almost 30 locations in Tokyo alone, is an ideal quick stop on or after a night out. The classic ramen is the Shiromaru, which features a creamy pork-based stock, thin yet slightly firm noodles, and a topping of chashu (braised) pork slices. Other options include the Akamaru, which has a little red miso mixed in the soup, and side dishes such as gyoza dumplings.
Down a little side street and behind a tiny door—situated just as all good tonkatsu shops should be—Isen has been serving tender, fried pork cutlets since the late 1920s. To avoid the crowds, plan to come right before or after the midday rush, and try to sit at the bar so you can watch the staff place each piece of your set lunch plate with precision.
Offerings at this small café just to west of the Imperial Palace's Chidorigafuchi feature coffee beans from as far afield as Brazil, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea. There's also usually a decaf option available.
This family-run restaurant serves authentic soba—thin buckwheat noodles, often served chilled in summer and hot in winter in a rustic atmosphere—in a rustic atmosphere. Although a simple soba meal can be quite inexpensive here, it still might be worth spending just a bit more to have your noodles topped with tempura or other goodies.
The ever-popular Kanda Yabu Soba is in a traditional-style building that replaced the original 130-year-old structure after a fire in 2013. It's one of the oldest and best places to sit down and savor freshly made soba noodles—be that on tatami or at one of the tables.
The appeal of Ajioka's seasonal specialties like fugu (puffer fish) and suppon (Japanese turtle) lies as much in the unique texture and experience as in the subtle, nondescript taste. Licensed chefs prepare these in every way imaginable—raw, fried, stewed—using the fresh catch flown in straight from Shimonoseki, a prime fugu-fishing region. Try the house specialty of suppon (Japanese turtle) and fugu nabe, fugu sashimi, or fugu no arayaki (grilled head and cheeks). Menus change by season and reservations must be made two days in advance to order fugu.
As Japan's sumo heartland, Ryogoku is home to not just the Kokugikan wrestling arena and numerous beya (training stables), but also to plenty of restaurants specializing in chanko-nabe, the hotpot of meat, seafood, and vegetables eaten by sumo wrestlers. At Kappo, this hearty fare is served in a former training stable, complete with a practice ring is in the middle of the main dining room. Depending on the course you select, the hotpots can also be accompanied with sashimi, sushi, or tempura. Most nights there will also be some entertainment, whether that's a shamisen performance or retired wrestlers singing traditional songs.
Inside a 120-year-old former merchant house on the prominent Ichibangai shopping street, this casual eatery is good for a quick sit-down lunch or a to-go snack. It's known for its skewers of grilled, soy-basted dango (rice dumplings) and its indulgent parfaits, but it also serves bowls of more filling udon or imo soumen (thin, wheat-flour noodles thickened with local sweet potatoes).
This laidback joint in the lively Harmonica Yokocho neighborhood proves that an intimate sushi experience doesn’t have to be overly formal or expensive. Grab a seat at the counter, and use the picture menu to help you order, or enjoy a three-, eight-, or twelve-piece set menu—perhaps paired with nihonshu sake selected from the short beverage list. Although it doesn't serve lunch on Wednesday, Katakuchi makes up for it by offering oden (small stewed dishes) with dinner that evening.
Offering a bird's eye view of happenings below, this 8th-floor restaurant combines Japanese and Western ingredients to create modern home cooking–style dishes. A picture menu before the elevator let's you decide on your selection before you even go in.
Prominently standing at the edge of Yanaka, just a short walk to the west from the National Museum, this historical café is a popular stop for lunch or a light snack. A century old, the café has been stylishly renovated and serves homemade sandwiches, curries, cakes, and kaki gori, a traditional treat of flavored shaved ice. The first floor has a bar and dark wood tables, while the second is an airy Japanese-style tatami room with low tables. Although Kayaba isn't usually too crowded in the morning, expect to line up if you arrive at lunchtime.
The specialty here is shabu-shabu: thin slices of beef cooked in boiling water at your table and dipped in sauce. Kisoji, which has been serving the dish for more than 60 years, elevates the experience, with all the tasteful appointments of a traditional ryotei—private dining rooms with tatami seating (at a 10% surcharge), elegant little rock gardens, and alcoves with flower arrangements. The easiest way to order is to opt for a course, which range from ¥5,000 to ¥10,000. There are branches in Ginza, Shimbashi, Shinjuku, Ueno, and elsewhere as well.
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