All good meals incorporate elements of theater, whether in the table setting, the waiters' movements or the way each dish is unveiled. Dining out in Tokyo often adds an extra dimension: watching the chefs at work on your meal from a kitchen-front seat. At Eiki, the dramatic tension builds before you even slide open the front door.
The inscrutable frontage of plain, untreated timber; the traditional andon-style lantern glowing at ground level; the indigo blue noren curtain half obscuring the entrance — the complex kanji characters of the name, barely visible on that cloth, are the only indication you are in the right place.
Once inside, you find a shallow ramp leading to a second doorway. The passage through this narrow, wood-lined antechamber barely takes a couple of seconds, but it's enough to further whet your anticipation. And then you're there, transported from the outside world into a compact space of light and warmth and wafting aromas.