A cooking class booked in the first few days of your trip is the best way to get acquainted with a new destination.
02.04.2024 - 16:59 / lonelyplanet.com
Want to take a deep dive into Tokyo’s famous (and famously amazing) dining scene, but worried about committing some unforgivable gaffe? Here's all you need to know to eat like a local. Hint: it’s not as hard as you might have feared. In fact, once you nail the logic of eating in Tokyo, it all makes a lot of sense.
Really small. This is the most important thing you need to know about dining out in the city. A restaurant might literally have only 12 stools at the counter, and maybe two tables that can each seat up to four.
And this set-up is not at all unusual. Many Tokyo dining etiquette conventions stem from the specific requirements of keeping such small enterprises afloat. The dining scene is also highly competitive. For that reason, most restaurants are run on extremely tight margins.
If you have in mind the image of a chef-run restaurant with seating for 20, you can imagine the impact that a party of four skipping out on their reservation would have on the restaurant's haul for the night.
Especially if the chef made a special trip to the market that morning just to buy ingredients for your meal.
Unfortunately, there is a widespread belief among Tokyo restaurants that overseas guests are more likely to flake on reservations than local diners.
There may be some truth to this: after all, it can be stressful to ring up a restaurant where no English is spoken (and out-of-towners don't have to worry about never being able to show their faces there again).
More likely it’s a case of a few examples blown out of proportion. But every no-show amplifies the echo chamber and makes it harder for overseas visitors to get reservations.
There are now a handful of restaurants that will only accept reservations from foreign travelers through the intermediary of a hotel concierge; others require you to give a local phone number.
Third-party reservation websites and apps, such as TableCheck and OpenTable, however, are somewhat filling the gap, making it easier for non-Japanese speaking diners to arrange (and cancel) reservations on their own at participating establishments.
Whatever the case may be, if you just can’t make it, please find a way to communicate that to the restaurant, ideally the day before (your accommodation can usually help with this). Note that no-shows are sometimes expected to pay a cancellation fee, which may be as much as the cost of a whole meal.
Good question! The short answer: generally, no. Many casual places don't even take reservations, with popular spots enjoying the free advertising that a long line out front creates.
For these places, your strategy should be to show up outside of peak meal times, which is roughly 11:30am to 1pm and 6pm to 7:30pm, but not in the middle of the afternoon (when
A cooking class booked in the first few days of your trip is the best way to get acquainted with a new destination.
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Ten new restaurants have another great reason to book a table.
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