Tokyo is a tough place to open any business, especially your first restaurant. Along with kitchen skills and front-of-house nous, you need the right location, good connections and a strong underlying raison d'etre. A catchy name and some funky background music can't hurt either, ...
Tokyo has never been big on outdoors dining. Save for the old-school beer gardens that mushroom in midsummer, there are too few opportunities in the inner city to drink, snack and while away the time al fresco. At least there's Commune 2nd. Following its predecessor, ...
There are lots of good reasons for visiting Kamakura. It has temples, shrines and walks in the hills. You can windsurf, laze on the beach or just enjoy that rare sensation of having escaped the megalopolis. But dining out rarely comes high on the ...
It is all too easy to overlook Hanabi. Every day streams of visitors walk past this unprepossessing noodle joint without giving it a second look as they hike between the center of Kamakura and the Hase area and its famous Great Buddha. That's their ...
Many of Tokyo's finest restaurants are so hidden away you hardly know they're even there. But there's little chance of missing Maruka. In the unlikely event that you fail to spot the large white noren curtain across the entrance, you won't miss the long ...
Everybody likes a happy ending, especially when the story involves one of Tokyo's most popular pubs. That's why many cheered when Mikkeller Tokyo announced its return this spring. A year after calling it quits in Shibuya's Udagawacho district, the Danish-based craft beer bar has reincarnated. ...
Beware of basement dining bars with neon signs, dim lighting and moody music. All too often they deliver style with little substance and menus that titillate but fail to deliver. Thankfully, there are a few exceptions. In Nishi-Azabu, one of the best is S'accapau. From ...
With its gleaming glass frontage and punchy name in purple neon beaming into the Shibuya night, you can tell straight away Out is going to be a bit special. But it's only when you're inside and ensconced at the elegant little horseshoe-shaped counter that ...
Tokyo's best new pizzeria is not hard to find. Just a brief stroll from Akabanebashi Station, it faces out onto a quiet open space ringed with trees. You can't miss it: the neon glowing over the door proclaims "Pizza" and, in smaller letters, the ...
Another month, another new craft beer bar throws open its doors in Tokyo. The spread of microbrewed saisons, porters and hopped-up IPAs is inexorable and highly welcome — especially when the venue is as attractive and welcoming as Another8. Instead of following the standard American ...
Specialist unagi restaurants generally fall into two categories. Most follow tradition, evoking the old days when grilled freshwater eel was a humble food of the masses. Others adopt a more sophisticated, formal approach for their eel cuisine. But Ryo boasts a style very much ...
Time was when dining out under Tokyo's train tracks and expressways meant slumming it with dodgy yakitori and rotgut sake. These days the arches are gentrifying fast — just look at Sanagi Shinjuku. Squeezed in under the Koshu Kaido overpass just a short stroll from ...
