Robbie Swinnerton - The Japan Times

November 04, 2025

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Robbie Swinnerton

Robbie Swinnerton has been living, eating and writing about food in Tokyo for over 30 years. His column, Tokyo Food File, has run in The Japan Times since 1998.

Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE

Dec 26, 2013

Favorite finds from 2013's Food File

As 2013 draws to a well-replete coda, there's just enough time to stop, pause and ponder the culinary highlights of the past 12 months. Tokyo has never been better for eating out, and this year has brought a further glut of excellent restaurants at every point on the budget spectrum. Here are a few,...

Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE

Dec 5, 2013

Kagurazaka GiroGiro: Kyoto import brings a youthful buzz to kaiseki

The plate is a deep turquoise blue, hand-thrown and uneven. The sliver of fish on top, its skin grilled to a burnished copper, sits on a jade green sauce. The place mat depicts a neon psychedelic geisha. Welcome to the Technicolor world of dining, GiroGiro style.

Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / SWEET INSPIRATIONS

Dec 5, 2013

Satisfy that sweet tooth with a limitless pick of the trolley

Nothing beats a great dessert at the end of a memorable meal — and never more so than when you're out for a yearend splurge. Many high-end restaurants offer double the pleasure, laying on two sweet courses, or even three if you count the chocolates and other tidbits served with your coffee.

Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / FOOD MATTERS

Nov 28, 2013

Quality rises above the menu scandals

Since the first Tokyo Michelin guide was published in autumn of 2007, the unveiling of each new edition has become one of the major events of the gastronomic calendar. Despite the initial indignation that a foreign tire company could dare to judge Japanese restaurants, the local media have embraced the...

Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE

Nov 14, 2013

Misotetsu Kagiroi: Meat, miso and veg, from hot plate to platter

Hidden away on a narrow backstreet in Ogawamachi, one of Tokyo's old-school carousing districts, Misotetsu Kagiroi is far from your typical izakaya tavern. Unlike most of its neighbors, it does not sport a large red lantern outside to grab your attention. Nor are you greeted by raucous revelry as you...

Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE

Oct 31, 2013

Smokehouse: Harajuku lures foodies to the smoked BBQ pit

Low and slow: The much-loved mantra of American barbecue culture is more than just a slogan. It's an attitude, a badge of pride in a way of cooking and eating that's still little known to people here in Japan. If Smokehouse has anything to do with it, that situation looks set to change in a big way....

Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / SWEET INSPIRATIONS

Oct 31, 2013

Sweet new fad pops up in Omohara

Want to know what's new and hot in the sweets world? Just head to "Omohara," the district where the youth fashion of Harajuku intersects with the high-end consumer culture of Omotesando. You can spot the trends from a block away: Just look for the lines.

Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE

Oct 3, 2013

Anis: Chef brings kitchen flair from Lyon to Hatsudai

Hatsudai has a lot going for it. This quiet low-rise residential neighborhood just minutes west of Shinjuku boasts a friendly traditional shōtengai (shopping street) and a lively annual Awa Odori dance festival. Now add to that a really outstanding restaurant.

Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / SWEET INSPIRATIONS

Oct 3, 2013

A modern twist to traditional snacks

Nowhere is the intersection of Japanese food culture and style more obvious than in the genteel, refined world of wagashi. For centuries, Japanese confectioners, especially those associated with Kyoto and the rituals of the tea ceremony, have produced sweets of astounding intricacy and beauty.

Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE

Sep 19, 2013

Shakunage: Moongazing over kaiseki in the heart of Ginza

The moon is magical in any phase, but it's never more beautiful than the first full moon of autumn. Some people go out to gaze at temples or teahouses; others from hillsides or seashores. But few would think of heading into central Tokyo ...

Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE

Sep 5, 2013

Bépocah: Just like they cook it in Peru — but in Tokyo

It's not easy for a new restaurant to stand out, or to even gain a foothold, in a city of the scale and sophistication of Tokyo. Bépocah manages that feat with ease — and in two very different ways.

Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / SWEET INSPIRATIONS

Sep 5, 2013

Take a little bite of Portugal's egg tart

Portugal has plenty to answer for when it comes to the way Japan eats. Tempura, castella sponge cake and even bread — paõ in Portuguese, pan in Japanese — were all assimilated following the arrival of the first trading ships in the mid-16th century.

Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / FOOD MATTERS

Aug 29, 2013

Indie food mags develop a taste for Japan

First sushi, then noodles; next sake and wagyū beef: The world's fascination with Japanese cuisine shows no sign of abating. More and more people are writing about it, too, from travel buffs and visiting cooking experts to untold legions of foodie bloggers.

Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE

Aug 15, 2013

Light bites of every flavor in Tokyo

Tokyo has seen more and more restaurants recently open with the express purpose of offering casual, light bites, rather than elaborate full-course meals. Close to home is fine, as long as we can nibble and graze, ordering a dish or two at a time, and interspersing food with drink and conversation till...

Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE

Aug 1, 2013

Marusen Seimen: Chicken ramen to bowl you over

It's summer: You're not supposed to have an appetite. All you feel like is eating noodles? Welcome to the club. Here's one place where I've been finding nourishment in this most difficult of seasons.

Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / SWEET INSPIRATIONS

Aug 1, 2013

Chocolate gelato at its most intense

Who eats chocolate in summer? Very few people who I know. It's not just that chocolate bars melt in seconds: The taste can seem too heavy and the texture too cloying. It simply doesn't seem to suit Japan's muggy heat. But there's one exception to that rule I'll gladly and frequently make — when the...

Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE

Jul 18, 2013

Akasaka Tantei: A taste of Kyoto-style Okinawa in Tokyo

Okinawan food is — for me at least — the food of summer. When the days are short and chill, I have little interest in the flavors of Japan's southwestern isles. But when the heat and humidity build like a thunderhead, that is the time the cravings arise.

Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE

Jul 4, 2013

Cicada: The buzz continues, and it's better than ever

A breeze ruffles the surface of the pool next to my table. A canvas parasol stirs above my head. I sink back into my rattan throne, a cool microbrew in my hand. On a hot summer evening in the center of Tokyo, it really doesn't get much better than an outside table at Cicada.

Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / SWEET INSPIRATIONS

Jul 4, 2013

Takemura: as traditional as it gets

Sweetshops don't get much more traditional than Takemura; inside and out it is a classic. Founded in 1930, this handsome two-story wooden building has stood untouched in the backstreets of Kanda-Sudacho, with its stone lantern, shrubs, the little palisade of bamboo and verge of greenery.

Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE

Jun 21, 2013

Gallus: Torishiki spinoff is a chick of the same feather

It's always exciting when a favorite restaurant sprouts an offshoot, especially if that restaurant is among the best of its kind in the city. And even more so when it's such a hot table that reservations are nigh-on impossible.

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.

The second life of Japan's net cafes

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo

Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo

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