During college, I spent two summers and two winters in Japan and made one of my primary goals to try and eat the most interesting and tasty food possible. Last summer, I asked on my Instagram if people might be interested in some structured guide to exploring Japanese food and the response was incredible - thank you!
While I benefitted from having some family in Japan (I’m half Japanese, and I know enough to work my way through the menu and chat about it with people), much of this guide is indebted in particular to the advice of my co-workers and friends over the years who provided invaluable knowledge.
There are still surely many remaining mistakes – I still have a lot to learn! I don't think I am the foremost expert in this field by any stretch, but I've resolved to write down at least my current understanding.
Preliminaries
Who this guide is for: Americans who have spent less than 1 month total in Japan and are willing to put in about a 10-20% more effort for a 30-50% quality improvement.
My biases:
Often I was on a fairly tight stipend, so my thoughts skew toward high "cost performance" over convenience or atmosphere. I was happy to stand in 1-2 hour lines or eat standing, for example.
I speak ~intermediate Japanese, so this guide may put those who are less fluent into situations where communication will be challenging, e.g. no English menu. That being said, with a little preparation (translating a few words before-hand, knowing what the menu item you want looks like written so you can select it on the vending machine), you will be totally fine! Nearly everyone will be understanding and more than happy to help you out with the remaining difficult-to-comprehend parts of the experience.
Finally, I don't particularly value the kind of Japanese food which is most famous in the U.S., particularly ramen and sushi any higher than other foods that are “particular” to Japan.
A note on Sushi in particular: I'd venture as far to say that the idea of having a good sushi-bar omakase experience in ~Tokyo is extremely difficult at any reasonable price - you are much better off venturing into a slightly smaller city or going for more toned-down atmosphere at either a standing-sushi or conveyor-belt sushi restaurant. If you are planning on visiting another coastal city or smaller town during your travels, I’d highly recommend scoping out a sushi spot there instead!
Some conceptual framing: Japanese food is often separated into so-called “A-tier” and “B-tier” foods. “A-tier” food includes sushi, kaiseki (small plates), French food - think a nice sit-down meal with a waiter and multiple courses. “B-tier” food encompasses nearly everything else - ramen, donburi (rice bowls) of various kinds, izakaya/bar food, etc. Importantly, the “B” does not imply worse than “A”: rather, delineating the tiers gives the freedom for B-grade restaurants to perfect a more “B” experience focused on high quality dishes without requiring a “A” dining experience.
As a result, while restaurants that become more well-known in the US often begin franchising or “dress up” and make fancy the experience, this is rarely the case in Japan. Generally, small spots that become famous simply let the lines get longer and staff prefer to continue to serve food themselves to 5-6 people at a counter over hiring waiters or expanding the size of the shop.
General advice
Reviews in Japan tend to skew much more critical than in the United States. The top-rated restaurant on Yelp-equivalent "Tabelog" has around 4.71 stars out of a possible 5, and the majority of the top 10 have under 4.5 stars - these are very high reviews! In general, 3-3.2 stars and above indicates fairly high quality, and anything above 3.5 is most likely worth waiting in a line for. Go beyond 3.8 and you're likely waiting a significant length of time or making a reservation. In my view, the sweet spot is usually around 3.5-3.8 - just below the "crazy famous" threshold. To give an example, the extremely famous Udon spot Maruka has a 3.94 (and usually has a 20-30 minute line to get in), but taking the train two more stops to go to 香川 一福, which has a 3.65 and usually no line gives in my view equally good noodles in a much more relaxed atmosphere.
Tabelog can look intimidating, but it isn't too difficult once you get the hang of it. Unfortunately, you do have to use it in Japanese to access most important features, but Google translate will take care of most of the work for you. From the main page, you can enter a city or your nearest transit station, and it will start displaying options nearby. Usually, I just select food type and max price (¥3k/meal is plenty to filter out overly fancy spots), then view results based on the map.
Food types are nested in genres – I’ve annotated an example below. Be sure to sort by score (ランキング) rather than recommended to get results sorted by star rating rather than advertisements!
Notice here I’ve filtered for 和食 (Washoku), or “Japanese food” - the other major category is 洋食 (Youshoku) or western food, which includes curry, hamburg steak, omurice (egg omlet), various katsu (breaded fried pork and meats), and other Japanese interpretations of “western” dishes.
As an aside, finding a good 洋食 place is a bit different: generally, a good 洋食 place will have atmosphere stuck somewhere between a Swiss-alps themed diner and a French restaurant. Here’s a good example of a favorite of mine. The vague “European” aesthetic is important: look for an interior like this to know the food will also be quite good! I think going to one such place is almost a must for any Japan trip.
Here are a few signals I look for in a good B-grade 和食 restaurant:
You order from a vending machine placed at the entrance
Said vending machine has at most 3 different options, with additional sides and beer available
Seats are counter-style, or standing only
Most of the crowd around lunch are wearing suits/look like they're on their lunch break
A TV is playing some random news program in the corner
To give a specific example, this ramen place near Ueno ticks all 5 boxes and is excellent. I’ll try to give many specific examples of each where possible!
My favorite places in Tokyo
Without further ado, here’s a Google Maps list of my favorite spots that you’re welcome to add, most of which have explanations attached - I erred on the side of inclusion in terms of “restaurants” (there are a few bars and cafes), and exclusion in terms of quality - I only added places that I thought I would heartily recommend to people, and flagged places that I would especially go out of my way to go to.
There are tips as well in the descriptions of places, but please let me know if you have questions about any of those!
There are just a few places that I would both consider “must-go” (they are likely to cause you to re-evaluate how good a class of food could be) and are likely to not already be on most people’s lists, here I’ll restrict myself to 5 possible meals:
Maru-katsu or another highly rated Oyakodon
Maruka or Kagawa Ippuku for Udon
Any location of Tsujihan for Kaisen-don
Finally, in terms of ~fancy food, my primary recommendation to people visiting is Ukai Chikutei. It is a bit of a trek (near Mt. Takao) but well worth it and probably my most memorable restaurant experience of all time - beyond just great food, in the summer they had an intermission mid-meal where they released thousands of lightning bugs for us to enjoy as we walked around the attached park, and all food was prepared for us individually by a chef in the small private dining room we ate in. I can’t promise exactly that, but given the attention to detail paid by the staff I am pretty confident they will have cooked up a similarly amazing experience.
Conclusions
The lists and advice I have aren’t exhaustive by any stretch, and I don’t think they’re definitive for anything or perfectly up to date. The most important thing you can do is research on Tabelog - read reviews and begin a list for yourself for an area you’re visiting! Start flagging interesting spots you’d like to check out, then after visiting think about what about the place signaled its quality (or lack thereof) and revise accordingly. If you continue to do this, you’ll quickly amass a huge number of places to try and always be able to check something new out.
Finally, the base quality of food in Japan is also quite high, so you’re unlikely to end up somewhere really poor so long as you’re visiting 3.2+ star places – it’s hard to go wrong! Don’t stress over any individual restaurant, and if you’re not feeling like waiting in a line I promise there’s an equally good spot a block away waiting for you. Enjoy, and please do let me know how it goes!