For a rejuvenating start to the day indulge with a Japanese breakfast at Yakumo Saryo. Designed by architect Shinichiro Ogata, the teahouse is a tranquil space offering a morning of peace and mindfulness. The asacha (morning tea) set breakfast includes a variety of teas, porridge, fish, pickles, miso soup, and wagashi (confections) to finish. Reservations are required.

Just minutes from Shinjuku Station, L’ambre, which opened in 1950, allows customers to step back in time to an old-school kissaten. The cafe sports a high ceiling, red velvet seats, and classical music, providing the perfect atmosphere for enjoying coffee drinks, pizza toast, tuna and egg sandos, and a selection of cakes. Retro menu items include coffee jelly topped with ice cream and whipped cream, as well as a bright-green melon soda float.

There’s no shortage of soba specialists in Tokyo, but few manage to create noodles quite as flavorful and satisfying as those at Tamawarai. Each batch is made from scratch — the dough mixed, rolled, and cut by hand — and much of it with buckwheat the restaurant helps to grow. The side dishes, such as soba miso and the wonderfully creamy yuba (tofu skin), are prepared with equal care. Tamawarai does not accept reservations, so despite the less-than-convenient location in a residential neighborhood between Shibuya and Harajuku, you will invariably find yourself standing in line for up to an hour to get in.

Manma, an onigiri (rice ball) shop, sits in the shadow of the Shinjuku Isetan department store. Onigiri are a classic comfort food, but Manma’s draw is its unique fillings: Popular options include a “mother and child” of grilled salmon with sujiko salmon roe, seasoned ground meat with cured egg yolk, and bacon with cream cheese. The only side dishes — all that’s really needed — are miso soup and tsukemono, pickles. The casual seating is at the counter, so everyone has front-row seats to watch the staff assemble giant rice balls. Expect a queue for a seat, but you can also take to-go orders (usually faster) to the nearby Shinjuku Gyoen park for an impromptu picnic.

Chef Yuki Motokura left a traditional Japanese kitchen to open Pizza Marumo. Motokura defines his pies as neither Neapolitan nor Roman, but as Tokyo-style. The charred pizza dough has the texture of freshly grilled mochi rice cakes, a comfort food for many Japanese diners. The extensive menu includes wagyu carpaccio, oven-roasted vegetables, and a long list of pizzas. The restaurant covers classic pizzas, as well as unique Japanese-style renditions incorporating umami-rich ingredients like katsuobushi (smoked skipjack tuna flakes), kombu (kelp), shiitake mushrooms, or almost cheesy, soy-marinated tofu.

Grillmaster Takashi Imai’s namesake yakitoriya is large, sleek, and contemporary. All the seats look in on his spacious open kitchen, so you can watch him in action over the main charcoal pit. Besides his excellent chicken skewers, Imai usually offers a list of premium meats, such as French pigeon. There’s also a serious selection of grilled vegetables from his second grill, plus a substantial list of natural wine.

It’s no secret Tokyo has some of the best French cuisine outside of France, partly because local chefs study with the world's best, as Shinobu Namae at L’Effervescence did with Michel Bras and Heston Blumenthal. The restaurant has built a strong following with its use of premium produce, innate seasonal sensibility, and clear pride in good service, not to mention its tranquil location. Pro tip: Lunch is an especially good value.

Nowhere in Tokyo serves tonkatsu (breaded deep-fried pork) with the quality and sophistication of Butagumi, set in a 60-year-old, two-story, freestanding traditional house. Here, you dine on premium cutlets — made from your choice of a couple dozen regional heirloom breeds — cooked a beautiful golden brown and served with a pyramid of finely slivered cabbage and thick, house-made Worcestershire-style sauce.

Sake aficionados flock to Marie Chiba’s Eureka sake bar. The impressive sake list includes labels like Senkin, Aramasa, and Raifuku. Pair a glass with sake-friendly small plates like a smoked jammy egg covered in squid ink mayonnaise, blue cheese ham katsu, and crab cream croquettes. As a sake sommelier, Chiba can expertly recommend pairings, and will warm up some sake to draw out different expressions. There are only a dozen counter seats so be sure to book in advance, or walk in and hope to get a tachinomi (spot for standing and drinking).

Second-generation chef Daisuke Shimazaki serves traditional Edomae sushi at Sushi Yuu, located in a quiet residential area not far from the busy Roppongi district. While some high-end sushiya can feel stiflingly formal, more like a library or a church than a convivial restaurant, chef Shimazaki puts all of his customers at ease (in English, Russian, or Italian, as well as Japanese). The meal starts off with small seasonal bites such as grilled Pacific mackerel and simmered yellowtail before the parade of nigirizushi. Sushi Yuu is particularly famous for tuna, which Shimazaki sources from one of Toyosu Market’s top tuna vendors.

Bricolage offers work by a dream team of prestigious chefs. Soups and salads come from chef Shinobu Namae of three-Michelin-starred L’Effervescence; baker Ayumu Iwanaga of Le Sucré-Coeur in Osaka contributes sourdough, baguettes, and pastries; and Kenji Kojima of Fuglen provides the coffee. Stop by for tartines and sandwiches, served on vintage blue and white dishes, and the outdoor seating, a rarity in Tokyo. Bricolage also has an outpost at Shibuya Station’s Tokyu Food Show for takeaway.

Akomeya is the place in central Tokyo if you’re looking to buy premium rice, foodstuffs from around Japan, kitchen essentials (including earthenware donabe pots), and designer tableware. But the best reason to visit is the casual in-store canteen, Akomeya Shokudo, which serves simple set meals of rice, miso soup, pickles, and main dishes like deep-fried fish and scallops. There’s also kakigori shaved ice, which can be topped with chocolate and rum raisins, as well as a variety of teas including a yuzu green tea and lemongrass hojicha roasted green tea.

Kaiseki, Japan’s ineffable, hyper-seasonal traditional cuisine, always tastes best in its hometown, Kyoto. This can be attributed to the water, which is softer than in Tokyo. Chef Yoshihiro Murata gets around this by shipping water from the ancient capital to the Akasaka branch of his renowned Kikunoi to ensure his dashi soup stock is always perfect. In this tranquil, secluded setting, it’s almost possible to imagine you have left the metropolis far behind. At lunchtime, Kikunoi also offers more accessible and affordable bento lunches.

Owner Kentaro Nakahara sources the finest wagyu and knows all the best cuts to grill over the charcoal burners set into your tabletop at Sumibiyakiniku Nakahara. Besides his seven-item yakiniku (grilled meat) tasting menu, don’t miss the beef “prosciutto,” the tartare, or his self-styled legendary grilled tongue (which must be reserved in advance). Yakiniku is always fun, but it’s rarely as chic, clean, and smoke-free — both from cigarettes and the grills — as it is here.

The team behind Central in Lima, Peru — named the No. 1 restaurant in the world in 2023 by the World’s 50 Best group — opened Maz in 2022 in the Akasaka district. Chef Santiago Fernandez oversees the menu; like Central, Maz explores the vast biodiversity of locally sourced ingredients, with about 80 percent of the ingredients sourced from Japan. Fernandez has defined his cuisine as “based on the respect for nature.” In Japan that means unique ingredients like junsai (watershield, a type of water plant), sea vegetables including hijiki and umibudo (sea grapes), and a colorful variety of seafood including uni, octopus, and shellfish. Dessert is an exploration of different expressions of cacao.

The former geisha district of Kagurazaka is worth exploring at any time, but especially as evening falls on the atmospheric narrow alleys. Even more so if you’ve booked yourself into Ishikawa for an extended, multicourse kaiseki dinner. Hideki Ishikawa’s impeccable cuisine, superb quality ingredients, and gracious welcome have won him three well-deserved Michelin stars and a host of admirers around the world.

Apartment and retail complex Azabudai Hills opened in the heart of the city in 2023 with more than 100 food shops and restaurants, along with the Teamlab Borderless museum. There’s a meal here for everyone, including two-Michelin-starred Florilège and a second location of Sushi Saito, giving diners a chance at a seat despite the fierce competition for reservations at the original. Other standouts include Arabica Kyoto for coffee, Kawamura for tonkatsu, Pelican Café for ham katsu sandos, Sembikiya fruit parlor for over-the-top parfaits, Shogun Burger for wagyu burgers, and Sobamae Yamato for soba and sake-friendly small plates.

Music and cocktails intersect at Bar Meijiu, where Keisuke Matsumoto crafts bespoke cocktails to suit each customer’s whims. After a quick conversation about flavors and vibes — Are you in the mood for something fruity or sparkling? Or perhaps something caffeinated made with house-roasted beans? — Matsumoto works like an alchemist in a compact booth at the heart of the space to concoct the ideal beverage. At the same time, he tends to his collection of records, which includes a variety of genres but focuses mainly on jazz. The non-alcoholic drinks are also worth a try.

Built around a beautiful traditional garden, Tofuya Ukai’s low-rise complex of private rooms offers a glimpse of how Tokyo used to look and dine before the modern high-rise city developed. Multicourse meals include elaborate appetizers — like the specialty artisan bean curd served in hot pots in winter or chilled in summer — and culminate in servings of fish or meat grilled at the table.

Sachiko Tsukuda creates her unique wagashi (confections) to be paired with sake. Located in the hipster Yanesen district, the salon has earned a cult following among both wagashi and sake aficionados. Tsukuda’s signature is a modern take on dorayaki; she augments the traditional pancakes, typically stuffed with sweet azuki bean paste, by utilizing seasonal jams such as rhubarb or kumquat. She also incorporates vegetables into some of her sweets, such as jelly cakes made with burdock root or red turnips.

For his contemporary French cuisine, chef Guillaume Bracaval sources 95 percent of his ingredients locally. Set in the Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo at Otemachi, Michelin-starred Est features a variety of tasting menus, including items such as monkfish with house-made yuzu kosho, kombu-cured flounder, corn flan gazpacho, and pickled zucchini with tomato paste and nasturtiums. Wine aficionados will want to explore the Japanese bottle list, which is a study on unique grapes like muscat bailey A and fruity koshu, though the sommeliers can also include sake as beverage pairings. The meal finishes with sweets by pastry chef Michele Abbatemarco, including friandises utilizing honeys from various regions of Japan.

Part of the ritual of riding a shinkansen (bullet train) is enjoying a bento and green tea (or sake if you like), while taking in the view. Located inside of Tokyo Station, Ekibenya Matsuri offers about 170 regional ekiben (“eki” for station and “ben” short for bento box) brought in from throughout Japan, an excellent chance to enjoy a range of regional Japanese flavors. The colorful selection includes rice topped with sashimi, wagyu beef, or yakitori grilled chicken skewers, and there is even a gyutan beef tongue bento that contains a warming device activated by a pull-string, allowing you to enjoy a hot meal on your journey. The shop opens at 5:30 a.m. for anyone catching an early train.

No one has done as much to give Japan’s green tea culture a boost as interior designer Shinichi Ogata and his Higashiya wagashi (confectionery) shops. At his flagship store, a tranquil, capacious oasis above the madding crowds of central Ginza, the traditional wabi-sabi tea ceremony aesthetic has been given a contemporary makeover. Settle in for contemplation over premium teas, seasonal desserts (including kakigori ice in summer), and even light multicourse meals. You will emerge fully recharged.

Hanayama is famous for its oni himokawa udon noodles, which are thin and flat, and served in a tanuki raccoon-shaped bowl. The fifth-generation shop is from Gunma, a region famous for flour, but better known for silky, thin udon than himokawa. Hanayama also excels at tempura, so be sure to get some meaty maitake or shrimp. Hanayama also has a new restaurant at Haneda Airport, where the line is much shorter than at the Ginza location.

Tsukiji’s famous wholesale market finally made its long-delayed move to the new location in Toyosu. But the Outer Market — the compact warren of narrow, crowded streets known as Jogai — hasn’t gone anywhere. Alongside the sushi counters and ramen shops you’ll find retail stores selling everything from fresh seafood and katsuobushi (bonito flakes) to traditional knives and ceramics.

You’ll find dozens of shops lining this street in the Tsukishima neighborhood all serving monjayaki, a local dish similar to Osaka’s okonomiyaki. The setup at every shop is essentially the same: Diners select fillings such as mentaiko (spicy pollack roe), mochi, and cheese, and cook the monja themselves on a large iron plate set into each table with the help of a tiny spatula. The trick is to spread the mixture out thin and wait for it to crisp up (the staff will gladly show first timers the proper technique). Paired with an icy mug of beer, it’s a fun meal. The street is blocked off at night for pedestrians, giving it a lively atmosphere that attracts local Japanese as well as tourists. It’s best to peruse the shops and pop into the first one that seems warm and welcoming.

Housed in a classic low-rise building in a traditional neighborhood, Imahan is one of Tokyo’s oldest and best loved purveyors of beef cuisine. Shabushabu, sukiyaki, teppanyaki, and steak are all prepared and served with old-school refinement and expertise. Book yourself into one of the private rooms for an extended omakase feast. Just choose what provenance and grade of wagyu you want, then relax and let the kimono-clad waitstaff pamper you.

Nowhere serves unagi (freshwater eel) like Obana. The recipe for its kabayaki — fillets of eel that are steamed, charcoal grilled, and basted with a thick, rich, sweet-savory glaze — dates back to the times of the shoguns. Expect hour-long lines (especially on weekends) for the pleasure of sitting on a hard floor (thin cushions provided) at low communal tables, with a further wait while they dispatch the eel and slowly cook it to order. The anticipation is worth it, though. Obana’s unagi is widely agreed to be the best in the city.