Cook like a local: Tokyo
All budgets and tastes are dizzyingly well catered for in the Japanese capital. Whether you’re looking to drop thousands of yen on Michelin-starred wagyu or a tiny fraction of that on a katsu sandwich, the city’s food scene excels
Whether you’re looking for Michelinstarred wagyu or a katsu sandwich, this Japanese city’s food scene excels
Tokyo’s culinary scene is a gastronomy of extremes. Centuries-old traditions sit alongside cutting-edge modernist cooking; food handcrafted by artisans nudges between massproduced snacks; stark and austere preparations showcasing the purity of perfect produce jostle against obscene, over-the-top aggregations of salt, fat and spice. In food terms Tokyo has it all, and then some.
That holds true even if you don’t like Japanese food. Tokyo doesn’t have particularly large immigrant populations, like London or Los Angeles, but it’s still an incredibly cosmopolitan place where you can enjoy truly excellent pasta, burgers, dim sum, Korean barbecue or subcontinental curries as readily as ramen or sushi.
Tokyo’s food is also diverse in terms of price point. If you have the means and the inclination, you can drop ¥30,000 or more on flawless Michelin-starred meals. But you could also spend that amount on roughly 100 delectable katsu sandwiches from convenience stores. Because the amazing thing about Tokyo, and Japan in general, is that the food at every level is delicious. In most cities, vending machines or train station kiosks are probably the last places I’d recommend for food. In Tokyo they’d be among the first. In fact, you won’t get the full Tokyo experience until you get some soba or a beef and onion rice bowl for ¥300 (£2) from the Japanese equivalent of a greasy spoon.
The sheer number of places to eat is enormous, and it can be hard to know where to start, but take heart from the fact you can’t really go wrong and seek out some of Tokyo’s lesser-known specialities, truly unique culinary experiences that are seldom encountered outside Japan, or even outside Tokyo.