Issue 06
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.
Three of this week's openings are a rethink rather than a rebuild: a wine merchant who turned his own counter into a bar, a 95-year-old chef who flipped the format he built, and a menswear label that leans on a finishing machine only two workshops in Japan still run. And one new table near Kaminarimon is built around a different question: what a Japanese kitchen looks like when pork never enters it.
New restaurants
4 openings
HibiyaSoba
Hibiya Rokusantei
Rokusaburo Michiba is 95 and still cooking. His new room takes over a high-end soba house at Tokyo Midtown Hibiya and flips the format he built in Ginza: single plates around the soba instead of a long tasting dinner, timed for people heading in or out of the cinema next door.
YaesuSake counter
IMADEYA KAKU-UCHI TOKYO
Before opening, the Chiba wine merchant asked the office workers of Yaesu what they missed. Two answers came back: nobody dares invite the team out any more, and there is nowhere good before or after work. So they built a counter, bottles sorted by region, glasses from 3,000 yen.
AsakusaJapanese French
Engawa Sumida
Japanese-French cooking a few steps from Kaminarimon, with a terrace over the Sumida. No pork enters the kitchen and the beef is halal certified, and the team calls it muslim friendly rather than halal. Staff from France, Afghanistan, China and Sri Lanka greet you in your own language.
KagurazakaWine bar
Rokka
A small wine bar in a Kagurazaka back street, named after the dwarf rabbit its owner lived with for ten years. One sommelier, a sirloin as the house plate, and a counter that looks onto a tiny garden.
New shops
3 openings
HarajukuArt toys
Mellojoy
The squishy brand that pulled over 10 billion views on TikTok opens its first shop anywhere: two floors and about 150 references in Harajuku. Entry runs on timed slots because series sell out in a minute, and fans call it murijoy, the impossible joy. Every piece is finished by hand.
Yoyogi-UeharaMenswear
ASHBELL
Takuya Imagawa's first label, run by Yasuhiro Mihara's company, opens in a private house in Yoyogi-Uehara with old books and ceramics on the shelves. The knit is teasel-raised, a finish only two machines in Japan still run, and the denim is oiled with camellia.
ShinjukuCraft select shop
JAPAN EDITION
TOKYO BASE's craft selector takes its first Shinjuku address, on the second floor of Shinjuku Flags. FULLCOUNT reworks a WWII model in black for the opening, and ACRAFT dresses a daruma in the same denim, assembled piece by piece by hand.