Issue 07
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.
Two of this week's picks are places you have to be told about: a taiyaki counter tucked in an Asagaya arcade, and a charcoal bistro at the end of a half-basement corridor in Nishi-Ikebukuro. Three others are made by people who do the work themselves, from the rice to the ceramics to the sewing. None of them are on the way to anything, and that is rather the point.
New restaurants
3 openings
AsagayaTaiyaki
Tokyo Taiyaki Mania
The taiyaki is made with tofu and rice flour, gluten free and vegan, and comes out hot on a scoop of plant-based gelato. The mould is a rework of a song every Japanese kid knows.
Nishi-IkebukuroBistro
Le Logis Beau
A charcoal bistro hidden inside a sixty-year-old house, at the end of a corridor in a half basement. Wagyu and game over the fire, forty seats across two floors.
Kiyosumi-ShirakawaRice
nogi.
One ingredient, taken all the way: brown rice left to ferment, served as onigiri or as vegan plates at a counter open onto the kitchen.
New shops
3 openings
MorishitaCeramics
Rurbanism Tokyo Store
Contemporary Japanese ceramics placed on vintage Aalto, Wegner and Perriand furniture, in rooms that look lived in rather than staged. The same curation moves to Isetan Shinjuku from 30 September.
TakadanobabaAtelier
Tom Works Atelier & Shop
The two designers cut, sew and sell everything themselves, so the workshop sits in the middle of the shop, on the second floor of an office building.
SetagayaCat goods
Neko no Jikan
A shop built around maneki-neko, in the neighbourhood of Gotokuji, the temple of the beckoning cat. The second address opened a few minutes from the first, and foreign visitors now outnumber locals.