Issue 05
What caught our eye
Every week we walk the city so you do not have to. Here are the openings our team stopped for: the rooms, the counters and the shelves shaping Tokyo right now.
Six places this week. A cafe that rewrites its menu for each exhibition, cookies made from what butter-making throws away, denim stitched on machines from 1880. Every opening here starts with an idea, not a logo.
New restaurants
4 openings
ShibuyaButter sables
Butter no Itoko
Cookies made with buttermilk, the byproduct of butter-making that usually goes to waste. Butter no Itoko, literally 'butter's cousin', started in Nasu and just opened a counter at Tokyu Food Show Edge in Shibuya, with a scramble-crossing limited set.
GinzaExhibition cafe
THE SCENE TABLE GINZA
A cafe attached to the new Ginza Mirai Museum rewrites its whole menu for every exhibition. Food as part of the show, on Namiki-dori.
NihonbashiHong Kong dining
ABERDEEN
Modern Hong Kong dining at COREDO Muromachi, built on recipes from the kitchen of Ginza institution Hei Kee. Roast meats and dim sum, street classics done properly.
RoppongiSeafood & saikyo-zuke
Kyoto Yamaroku Keyakizaka
A Kyoto fish wholesaler founded in 1927 opens its Tokyo flagship on Keyakizaka: saikyo-zuke, seasonal fish, from kaiseki to a la carte. A century-old house, minutes from its centenary.
New shops
2 openings
Minami-AoyamaConcept store
A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE
A store that starts from a single piece of cloth. At A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE, patterns, seams and button spots are woven in at once, a direct line to the idea Issey Miyake first showed in 1998. The flagship is back in the FROM-1st building, where the house began.
OmotesandoDenim
THE KEIJI DENIM
A Japanese label born in New York opens its second store in Omotesando, entirely about denim. Jeans made with a Yamaguchi sewing workshop, stitched on Union Special machines from 1880.