News & Advice

In Time for the Olympics, Tokyo’s Dining Scene Has Taken on a Dynamic New Look

Though you may not be able to visit now, consider this your playbook for a future trip. 
Sushi M Tokyo
Ken Shikura

Over the past few years, Tokyo’s culinary landscape has seen tremendous changes. There have been pandemic-related losses due to COVID-19–with restaurant bankruptcies in Japan reaching 842 in 2020, according to Tokyo Shoko Research—yet new venues in Tokyo have been popping up at a dizzying pace, in part thanks to preparations for the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which will now take place this July.

This transformation is quite literal in some central Tokyo districts: The chaotic pop-culture haven of Shibuya, for example, is now home to slick shopping-and-dining complexes that span multiple city blocks, thanks to investments of more than $2.8 billion between 2018 and 2020 ahead of the Games. Statistics from the Japan National Tourism Organization show that visitors to the country reached a record high of 31.9 million in 2019, and the government was aiming for a goal of 40 million in 2020.

This constant sense of evolution is nothing new, but the rapid pace at which the dining scene is changing makes it clear: When Japan reopens to foreign visitors, there will be plenty to explore—and, importantly, to eat. 

Toranomon Yokocho

Courtesy Toranomon Yokocho

The rise of sophisti-casual dining

There has been a major shift toward sophisticated casual dining as of late, as Japanese diners seek out more relaxed restaurant experiences that won’t break the bank.

A new take on upscale food halls features casual outlets of some of the city’s top restaurants, with a side of nostalgia for the bar-hopping culture that has long flourished in the Japanese capital’s rapidly disappearing yokocho alleyways. What sets these next-gen venues apart from yesterday's food halls is the outstanding quality of the food, combined with the easy conviviality of street-food-style dining. A few are worth going out of your way for: Inside the sprawling, neo-retro Toranomon Yokocho complex, Elezo Gate serves a few of the Hokkaido game-meat signatures found at members-only Elezo House, while Tsukanto, a spinoff of beloved but now-shuttered restaurant Tirpse, specializes in delectable morsels of next-level tonkatsu paired with natural wine. 

The more intimate Eat Play Works food hall in the residential Hiroo neighborhood houses Sushidan, a family-friendly sushi joint owned by Hiroyuki Sato—of the exclusive restaurant Hakkoku—as well as pasta house Taratata, an outpost of the popular restaurant Melograno. Sincere Blue, the younger sibling of notoriously hard-to-book Sincere, focuses on refined bistro cuisine made with sustainable seafood inside Jingumae Comichi, a stylish cluster of small eateries that recreates the feeling of wandering through Tokyo’s maze-like backstreets.

The trend of going casual—without sacrificing quality nor finesse on the plate—has moved beyond food halls. Increasingly, Michelin-starred chefs are embracing elevated comfort food in new stand-alone eateries—from premium wagyu beef burgers at Burger Police, a new venture by Daisuke Takubo of Italian restaurant Tacubo, to tasting menus based on oden, a traditional dish of seafood and vegetables simmered in dashi broth, at Heichan. Backed by a crowdfunding campaign, Heichan is both a departure from the French cuisine that chef Ippei Matsumoto is known for at La Paix, and a nod to his roots: He grew up in the kitchen of his family’s oden shop in Wakayama Prefecture.

The new shape of fine dining

Glamour, however, is far from dead. Restaurant owners who were anticipating a surge in tourism around the Olympics have invested in several fine-dining venues scheduled to open this year—even without the expected visitors.

At Sezanne, which opens in July at Four Seasons Marunouchi, Per Se alum Daniel Calvert (formerly of Belon in Hong Kong) strives for “a sense of timelessness” in meticulous dishes like dashi-laced avocado mousse topped with Petrossian caviar. The dining room is sumptuously appointed with soft leather tabletops, Baccarat crystal, and Christofle cutlery.

“There’s always going to be room for haute cuisine, although the demand may be less than before,” Calvert says. “I’d like people to come here with the same anticipation that they’re going to be looked after as they would at a place like Le Bristol in Paris.”

More notable projects are yet to come. Massimo Bottura’s Gucci Osteria, led by rising-star chef Karime Lopez, plans to open its doors in August. Lima’s Virgilio Martinez, of Central, says he’s ready to roll out contemporary Peruvian restaurant Maz as soon as Japan’s borders reopen so that head chef Santiago Fernandez can lead the kitchen. The sleek art-and-food space Burnside is slated to launch later this year with menus curated by New York’s Ghetto Gastro.

Sushi M

Shikura Ken

Zero-proof cocktails get serious

With the number of teetotalers and sober-curious drinkers on the rise in Japan, as in other countries, bars specializing in no- and low-alcohol cocktails have finally arrived in traditionally hard-drinking Tokyo. Low-Non Bar captures the look and feel of a classic watering hole, with its dark wood interior and white-suited barmen. Cocktails such as the mock-Negroni, made with zero-proof Nema gin, are every bit as serious as their boozy counterparts. At bar 0%, the vibe veers toward futuristic funhouse—with silver bean bag chairs, shiny surfaces, and drinks like the cotton-candy sweet, purple-hued Iceland Bubble.

“Until recently, non-alcoholic drink options were limited to oolong tea and juice,” says Eiji Miyazawa, veteran bartender and founder of Low-Non Bar. “I wanted to create a space where drinkers and non-drinkers could be on the same wavelength, enjoying a sophisticated atmosphere with grown-up drinks.”

Restaurants are also developing non-alcoholic drink menus. At Sushi M, where the emphasis is on beverage pairings, owner-sommelier Yoshinobu Kimura flavors Oriental Beauty tea with orange zest and goji berry to harmonize with kohada (gizzard shad) sushi. At Michelin-starred Italian restaurant Faro—which offers a vegan tasting menu option—an anise-spiked blueberry-juice mocktail is a match for chef Kotaro Noda’s signature blue risotto made with purple cabbage and gorgonzola.

Florilège

Pieter D'Hoop

Creative collaborations take root

While many restaurants remain in survival mode, this time has proven to be a catalyst for creative partnerships.

For chefs such as restaurant Den’s Zaiyu Hasegawa, who opened Den Kushi Flori with longtime friend Hiroyasu Kawate of Florilege last autumn, that has been the silver lining of the pandemic. “This is the longest I’ve been grounded in Japan for several years, so it’s the only time we could have done this,” Hasegawa says, of the experimental Japanese-French fusion project. Kawate says that was part of the goal: “to encourage other chefs in Japan to collaborate.” 

Ichiei Taguma’s recent collaboration with Fukuoka ramen restaurant Mendo Hanamokoshi was so popular that the chef pivoted from fine dining to French-inflected ramen at Libre. Dishes such as charcoal-grilled Okinawan beef atop noodles in cheese-infused broth will remain on the menu, while Taguma ponders his next steps. Riding on the success of his recently opened “cocktail izakaya” SG Low, award-winning bartender Shingo Gokan of The SG Club will team up with The Burn’s chef Fumio Yonezawa and acclaimed sommelier Motohiro Okoshi to produce Swirl in October, a bar and restaurant centered on wine-based cocktails and inventive tacos. The bar’s entrance will feature a long sink for washing hands, reminiscent of grade school.

“Hand-washing is so important now, but we wanted to make it fun,” Gokan says. “This crazy, tough situation has given me the opportunity to come up with really wild ideas.” 

That fresh energy and greater inclusivity can be seen across Tokyo’s restaurant scene. With upcoming openings adding diversity and international flare, dining in the Japanese capital is undeniably entering a new golden age.