Japanese Cuisine

A restaurant that opened in 1929 and serves tororo, grated yam, with barley rice. The main dining rooms are on the first to third floors, and the roof holds a space that works as a buffet by day and a bar called Lounge Vista by night.

Lounge Vista opens at 18:00 and serves small dishes and drinks until 22:30, with last entry at 20:30. It is reservation-only, and bookings close the day before.

Good to know

• The rooftop bar is reservation-only and bookings close the day before, so it cannot be visited on the spur of the moment.
• Booking a table in the main dining rooms carries a minimum food order per person, which is higher at weekends and in private rooms.
• Online booking closes at 15:00 the day before; same-day requests go by phone.
• Hours differ depending on whether a Sunday or public holiday falls in the middle or at the end of a run of holidays.

A monja restaurant that opened on Monja Street in 2009 inside a house built in the early Showa period. The windows, the safe and the ceiling beams were kept from the original building. It seats 44 and can be hired exclusively for parties of 30 to 44.

Two stocks are used depending on the dish: a lighter stock simmered from several ingredients for the seafood monja, and a richer chicken-bone one. The kitchen closes at 22:00 and the bar at 22:30, with the door shutting at 23:00.

Good to know

• The kitchen closes at 22:00 and drinks at 22:30, though the door stays open to 23:00.
• The whole restaurant is non-smoking.
• Exclusive hire is possible for parties of 30 to 44.

A tempura restaurant on Orange Street serving tendon, a bowl of rice topped with tempura and sauce. A bowl with prawn, whiting and a mixed fritter is ¥2,300; one with four prawns is ¥2,700.

Sashimi, grilled aubergine and other small dishes are served alongside, and there is sake by the glass.

Good to know

• The Japanese and English pages give different closing times — 20:00 on one, 20:30 or 21:00 on the other. Do not count on a late meal here.
• The restaurant has no car park; the site points to the underground car park by the Kaminarimon gate.

A monja restaurant on a back alley off the third block of Monja Street, named after the old sweet shops: monja used to be sold as a children's snack, and the owners took the name to keep that in view. It opens at 17:00 on weekdays and 16:00 at weekends, and runs to 23:00.

The monja here are a mix of old and new. Besides the Tsukishima standard of mentaiko and rice cake, there is one built on Hatcho miso from Okazaki in Aichi, and one with a whole camembert on top.

Good to know

• There is no lunch service.
• Closing days are irregular rather than fixed.
• Smoking is allowed.
• Listed by the Tsukishima Monja Association; the shop has no site of its own.

A restaurant serving dozeu, loach, in a shallow iron pan over a charcoal burner. It opened in 1801, when the founder came to Edo from what is now Saitama and set up a shop selling loach soup and loach hotpot under the name Echigoya Sukeshichi.

The building is in the Edo merchant style, and the first floor has no windows on the street side so that nobody could look down on a passing lord's procession. Guests sit together at long low tables laid over the tatami.

Good to know

• There is no fixed weekly closing day. Closing dates are announced month by month on the restaurant's own site, so check before you go.
• Seating is shared, at long low tables.

A small monja restaurant on the fourth block of Monja Street, recently refitted, with 24 seats across five tables. The owners say the name — tomo, friend — reflects the kind of room they try to keep.

It opens at 17:00 on weekdays and 11:00 at weekends, and serves to 23:00. It is closed on Tuesdays. Among the monja are a few built for sharing rather than tradition: avocado with mentaiko and cheese, and a basil one with fresh tomato and bacon.

Good to know

• Closed on Tuesdays.
• There is no lunch service on weekdays.
• Listed by the Tsukishima Monja Association; the shop has no site of its own.

A tempura restaurant on Namiki-dori, part of a house that started as a small shop in Ningyocho in 1930 and opened in Ginza two years later, where it moved to frying in front of the guest at a counter. It serves without closing between lunch and dinner, from 11:30 to 22:00, every day of the year.

Dinner is three courses: ¥16,500, ¥22,000 and ¥27,500, with tax included and a 15 percent service charge on top. At lunch a tendon at a table is ¥6,000, and the counter courses run from ¥11,000 to ¥19,800.

Good to know

• A 15 percent service charge is added to the listed prices.
• Last orders are at 20:30 even though the restaurant is open until 22:00.
• Cancelling on the day costs the full price of the course.
• If you are more than 30 minutes late and cannot be reached, the booking may be treated as cancelled.

The largest of the Oshio restaurants listed here, with 124 seats over two floors: tables and tatami on the first, tatami only on the second. It is two minutes from the station, on the second block of Monja Street, and the shop describes its seating as sunken-hearth style.

It opens at noon on weekdays and 11:00 at weekends, and serves to 23:00 every day of the year. Smoking is allowed.

Good to know

• Smoking is allowed.
• Open every day of the year.
• Listed by the Tsukishima Monja Association; the shop has no site of its own.

A tempura house that opened in 1885 and now sits in Ginza 8-chome with twenty table seats and ten at the counter. It is known for Edo-style tendon and for frying each piece in one go, and it serves the same all-day menu from 11:30 until last orders at 21:00.

Tendon runs from ¥2,860 for the vegetable bowl to ¥5,060 for the house kakiage bowl, tax included, and tempura platters from ¥2,860 to ¥4,950. Single pieces of tempura can be ordered one at a time, with rice and miso soup added as a set.

Good to know

• Closed on Sundays, but open on Saturdays and public holidays.
• Last orders are at 21:00, and the lunch menu stops at 15:00.
• The restaurant asks guests not to confuse it with similarly named shops: this is the main shop in Ginza 8-chome.

An udon restaurant on the seventh floor of Axall Roppongi, one minute from the Oedo line exit. It moved into this building on 1 September 2024 after nineteen years elsewhere in Roppongi, and every seat is designed differently: counter, tables, box seats, a terrace, two private rooms and two VIP rooms.

It serves from 11:00 until 8:00 the following morning, with last orders at 7:00, which makes it one of the last kitchens working in the area. On Sundays and public holidays it closes at 23:00 instead.

Good to know

• Sunday is the one night it is not open late. Check the day before you plan a late meal here.
• The restaurant's own menu page shows dishes as photographs without prices, so no prices are listed here.