Echoes of Esquisse in the elegant new Elan
Elan is the new restaurant of the young and impressive Ryoma Shida, formerly of the two-Michelin-star restaurant Esquisse. Here, Japanese ingredients meet contemporary French cuisine.
Taishu Sakaba Raincolor: Start the decade with the down-home and delicious
The first meal of the year is always important. When it's the first of the decade, though, it surely takes on even weightier significance. So what's it to be? Fine dining or casual? Traditional or contemporary? Homegrown Japanese, something from overseas or perhaps some ...
Dining out in 2019: The world came to Tokyo, and the city answered
Before we leave 2019 behind, there's just time to look back on the past 12 months of dining out in Tokyo. And to wish all The Japan Times' readers good luck, good health and good eating in the year ahead.
Chaos Kitchen: Yokochō culture reimagined with 2020 vision
Occupying the entire basement level of the sparkling, reborn Parco luxury mall in Shibuya, Chaos Kitchen is not a food court. Nor is it anything like a typical department store dining floor, all straight lines and bland, standardized decor. In fact, it's like nowhere ...
Delifucious: The cult-classic fish burgers are reborn in Chaos Kitchen
Delifucious has resurfaced inside Chaos Kitchen, the casual basement dining floor in the hulking new Shibuya Parco building. And it already feels like it could be a perfect fit. While it lacks the rough-and-ready retro charm of the old digs, the new location brings ...
Esterre: Terroir, pedigree and the backing of a French superchef
Location is everything. But that's only one reason why Esterre, the beautiful new French restaurant unveiled last month in the ultraluxury Palace Hotel Tokyo, has so much going for it.
Katsuo Shokudo: A new, permanent location for the katsuobushi specialist
Mai Nagamatsu is more than just a fan of katsuo (skipjack tuna). She's an avowed, unapologetic evangelist for those streamlined, silvery pelagic fish that play such an important role in Japanese cuisine. So much so that she set up her own small specialist breakfast ...
Sakai Shokai: Quality izakaya dining at this hidden Shibuya gem
Hideaki Sakai doesn't make it easy to find his diminutive premises. Hidden on the second floor of an anonymous building on a quiet backstreet on the "wrong" side of Shibuya, it is invisible from the street. You access it through an unmarked door next ...
La Coquina: Spanish beer, wine and bar food, with no plastic straws
The vertiginous open-air viewing platform atop the new Shibuya Scramble Square building may be the area's latest and tallest attraction. But the restaurant floors immediately below are also drawing long lines. What if you don't want to wait? Try your luck at La Coquina. There's ...
Inua revisited: One year on from its grand opening
At Inua, the cuisine is as unique and distinct as a fingerprint.
At his superb new patisserie, Yuicihi Goto is without equal
Called Equal, this is the latest project by master patissier Yuichi Goto. Best-known as co-owner of the ever-excellent Path in nearby Tomigaya, his illustrious resume includes spells at the three-star Restaurant Troisgros in France, and then at Sugalabo in Tokyo's Kamiyacho.
Tama: A finessed fusion of Chinese and Okinawan cooking
For more than a decade, Tama has been the place to come for one of Tokyo's more unusual menus, a unique and stylish hybrid that it calls Ryukyu-Chinese. It's a blend of Okinawa specialties, such as ashitebichi (pig's trotter) and chanpurū (stir-fried tofu, meat ...
