Japanese Cuisine

Kaikaya is a seafood restaurant in Maruyamacho, two minutes from Shinsen Station and under ten minutes from Shibuya Station, which calls its cooking market food from east and west. The owner-chef buys fish directly from people he has known through years of surfing, and it comes in from Sagami and Suruga Bays; dishes run from sashimi and sushi to carpaccio, prawn with prawn sauce and whole fish broiled over a fire. The room is hung with illustrated fish charts, surfboards and fishing rods. It has 70 seats and is non-smoking throughout, with an English menu and English-speaking staff. Booking is essentially required, and online bookings must include a course.

Good to know

• Booking is essentially required, and weekend evenings certainly need one. Online bookings are made through the restaurant's own site and must include a course.
• Tables are held for two hours.
• Opening hours are given differently by the restaurant's own pages: the map page says 17:00–22:30 with last orders at 21:30, while the Japanese booking page says 17:00–21:30 with last orders at 22:30. Check before you go.
• The closing day is also given differently: the Japanese pages say the restaurant closes irregularly, while the English map page says it is closed on Wednesdays. It also closes 14 to 17 August and 31 December to 4 January.
• The price of the Fuku course is given as ¥12,000 on the booking page and ¥12,800 on the course menu page.
• Cancellation charges apply per person: ¥8,000 on the day or for a no-show, ¥5,000 from two days before. For parties of 13 or more the charge starts seven days ahead.
• Children of 10 and under can only be booked in for 17:00, 17:30 or 18:00, and pushchairs are not allowed inside.
• Requests about allergies cannot be accepted within two days of your visit.
• The whole restaurant is non-smoking.
• Any cover charge, any age limit and the restaurant's social media are not stated on the official site.

A monja restaurant founded in 1954, which says on its own site that it is the oldest monja shop on Nishinaka Street, the shopping street known as Monja Street, and that it marked its seventieth year in April 2024.

It is small: three tables for up to four and two for up to six, with the shop noting that the six-seat tables are a little tight for adults. It opens at 17:00 on weekdays and 16:00 at weekends, takes its last order at 21:30, and asks guests to be inside by 21:00. There are no smoking seats.

Good to know

• Last entry is 21:00 and last orders are at 21:30.
• Closed on Tuesdays, plus one further irregular day each month.
• Bookings are by telephone only.
• Prices are not published on the shop's site.
• Kondo Honten on the same street gives its own founding year as 1950, so the two shops' claims differ.

A teppanyaki restaurant in the basement of the Seryna building, where Kobe beef, Japanese wagyu and seafood are grilled on the iron plate in front of you. There are counter seats, tables and private rooms, and the restaurant is reached by stairs down from street level.

On weekdays it serves dinner only, 17:00 to 23:00 with last orders at 22:00. At weekends and on public holidays it also opens for lunch and the evening finishes half an hour earlier. The site is published in English.

Good to know

• A 10 percent service charge is added to the prices above.
• The restaurant asks that allergies be mentioned before ordering, and notes that prices and dishes may change without notice.
• The basement floor is reached by stairs.
• There is no car park; the restaurant asks you to use a nearby pay car park.

Gonpachi Shibuya is a soba restaurant on the 14th floor of the E. Space Tower in Maruyamacho, with a view across the Shibuya skyline. It serves hand-cut soba made from domestic buckwheat stone-ground every morning, skewers grilled over binchotan charcoal and freshly fried tempura. The chain became known abroad after the izakaya summit between George W. Bush and Junichiro Koizumi at its Nishi-Azabu branch and after a scene in Kill Bill was modelled on it. The Shibuya branch seats 224, has private rooms and can be hired for up to 250 people. It opens every day from 11:30 until 3:30 the next morning and is non-smoking throughout.

Good to know

• A minimum charge of ¥1,000 (¥1,100 with tax) per person applies from 17:00.
• Private rooms carry their own minimum: from ¥10,000 per room and ¥2,000 per person at lunch, and from ¥30,000 per room and ¥6,000 per person in the evening. The room minimum does not change for a smaller party, and the conditions differ between 15 December and 3 January.
• Because of air-conditioning work, the restaurant opens 11:30–23:00 from 1 to 5 November 2026, with last food orders at 22:00 and last drink orders at 22:30.
• The whole restaurant is non-smoking.
• Open every day, with no closing day.
• Reservations are taken online through Toreta Asia or by phone on 050-5443-0489. Travel agents and parties of 30 or more use a separate form.
• A vegan menu and a halal course are available.
• There is parking in the building, but it is not validated and cannot be used late at night.
• The official page does not state payment methods or any age limit.

A monja restaurant on the third block of Monja Street which gives its founding year as 1950, and says it started when the family was cooking monja in the corner of a sweet shop just after the war. The building has since been rebuilt, but the shop says it has kept the original recipe.

It opens at 17:00 on weekdays and 11:30 at weekends, and closes at 22:00 every day of the year. Courses have to be booked two days ahead, directly with the shop.

Good to know

• There is no lunch service on weekdays.
• Courses must be booked two days ahead.
• Prices are not published.
• Yoshimiya on the same street says it is the oldest monja shop there, so the two shops' claims differ.
• Listed by the Tsukishima Monja Association; the shop has no site of its own.

The branch where Jojoen started, a minute from Exit 4a of Roppongi Station, serving yakiniku at table seats partitioned to feel like private rooms. There are two pair seats, ten tables and one private room, 52 seats in all.

Last orders are at 3:00 in the morning from Monday to Saturday, and at 22:00 on Sundays and public holidays. Every seat is non-smoking, heated tobacco and e-cigarettes included, and there is a smoking area elsewhere on site.

Good to know

• A 5 percent service charge is added, except on the lunch menu and takeaway.
• Every seat is non-smoking, including heated tobacco and e-cigarettes. There is a separate smoking area on site.
• Sunday and public holiday last orders are at 22:00, five hours earlier than the rest of the week.
• The restaurant notes that the seat you ask for may not be available depending on bookings.

A monja restaurant on the fourth block of Monja Street with 65 seats, which the association also lists as a place to drink. Last orders are at 21:00, earlier than most of the street.

It is closed on Mondays, but if the Monday is a public holiday it opens and closes on the Tuesday instead. The shop runs a seasonal monja all year round: the spring one is built on shiso, cheese, raw squid and mentaiko.

Good to know

• Last orders are at 21:00.
• Closed on Mondays; if the Monday is a public holiday it opens and closes on the Tuesday instead.
• Opening hours on public holidays are not published.
• Listed by the Tsukishima Monja Association; the shop has no site of its own.

A wagyu grill on the seventh floor of ONE GINZA, open until 23:30 every day of the year, which makes it one of the latest kitchens in this part of Ginza. There are 90 seats including five fully private rooms for up to nine guests, and the food menu is printed with English alongside the Japanese.

Two courses are offered, at ¥9,300 and ¥12,400, both tax included with a service charge on top. À la carte, cuts run from ¥1,800 for thin-sliced tongue to ¥7,000 for chateaubriand.

Good to know

• A service charge is added on top of the listed prices.
• Last orders are at 22:30.
• Opens at 17:00 on weekdays and 11:30 at weekends and on public holidays.

The yakiniku restaurant Jojoen runs in Nishi-Azabu, eight minutes from Roppongi Station, in an eight-storey building where six floors are each laid out differently. There are table seats and Japanese-style private rooms with raised chairs; the tatami rooms on the fifth to seventh floors were rebuilt in July 2018.

On weekdays it opens at 16:00 and takes last orders at 4:00 in the morning. On Sundays and public holidays it opens at 11:30 and takes last orders at 3:00.

Good to know

• Saturday hours are left blank here because the restaurant's own page gives two different closing times for Saturday: 4:00 in its hours table and 3:00 in its notice of changed hours.
• The lunch menu was discontinued on 30 September 2025, so parts of the hours table on its own page may be out of date.
• A free-drink plan is ¥2,500 per person, service charge and tax included, for parties of four or more ordering the weekday course.

The smallest room on this list: twenty seats across five tables, down a back alley off the third block of Monja Street, run by a parent and child together. The shop says on its own site that it explains the cooking carefully, so first-timers need not worry.

It opens at 18:00 on weekdays and 17:00 at weekends, and closes at 22:30. It is closed on Mondays. The dish it is known for is a sweet shrimp monja with five or six large shrimp bought at Tsukiji; the heads and tails are grilled crisp and eaten like a cracker.

Good to know

• Closed on Mondays.
• Only twenty seats, so booking is worth it.
• The shop posts a notice of each month's opening on its own site; check it before you travel.
• There is no lunch service.