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.

Kozue has some of the best views in the metropolis from the 40th floor of the iconic Park Hyatt Tokyo, a view made famous in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation. Chef Nobuhiro Yoshida sources seafood directly from fishermen, who send him photos or videos of their catch while they’re still out at sea so that selections arrive the same day to the restaurant. Seasonal sashimi is presented over a bowl of crushed ice and wagyu beef hot pot arrives on exquisite tableware. Elevate the meal with a flight of sake from the impressive list.

Hiroyasu Kayama’s atmospheric, candle-lit ninth-floor hideaway is one of Tokyo’s most compelling bars, with shelves crammed with rare spirits and jars of obscure aromatics, and drinks just as likely to involve a mortar and pestle as a cocktail shaker. Sink into one of the half-dozen armchairs at the ancient-wood counter and give Kayama carte blanche to work his mixologist magic. Best to get there early, though: Bar Benfiddich’s fame extends far beyond the Shinjuku back streets.

No visit to Tokyo is complete without exploring a depachiku — the food halls found on the basement levels of most department stores. Isetan in Shinjuku can’t be beat for gourmet glamor, with local wagashi (Japanese confections) arranged alongside the patisseries of Sadaharu Aoki, Jean-Paul Hévin, and Pierre Hermé. Have a light meal at the in-house open kitchen or take a bento up to the roof garden.

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 Zaiyu Hasegawa’s decision to move Den from its iconic Jimbocho address has paid off in spades. The restaurant claims two Michelin stars and the top spot in Asia on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. The cooking remains innovative and satisfying, incorporating audacious, humorous ideas into Japan’s highly formalized kaiseki tradition. Expect foie gras in your appetizer and ants in your salad, along with his signature Dentucky Fried Chicken.

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.

Yoshihiro Narisawa worked under Paul Bocuse, Frédy Girardet, and Joël Robuchon. But at his namesake restaurant, he fuses French haute cuisine with a profound understanding of Japanese ingredients that has resulted in a style uniquely his own. Serving brilliant left-field dishes such as soil soup (yes, really) and Okinawan sea snake broth, alongside superb langoustine and wagyu beef, he more than merits his two Michelin stars and spot on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list.

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.

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.

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.

Oden is Japan’s favorite wintertime comfort food, an aromatic hotpot of slow-simmered seafood, meat, and vegetables, usually washed down with plenty of sake or beer. Otako has been serving it this way for almost a century and attracts an eclectic clientele, from humble salarymen to Ginza hostesses dolled up in kimonos. Slide open the door, wait for a seat, then take your place at the long counter, watching the chefs at work over the steaming oden pans. At any time of year, Otako is a Tokyo classic.

Tori paitan (creamy chicken broth for ramen) is rich and comforting, like grandma’s chicken soup. The broth clings to the thin straight noodles as one slurps. At Kagari, seasonal and colorful vegetables such as watermelon radish, snap peas, and kabocha squash top the dish and rotate throughout the year. Use the side dish of grated ginger and fried garlic, along with a bottle of vinegar from the counter, to brighten up and adjust the umami-rich soup to your liking. The main Ginza shop is on a quiet pedestrian back street, but the sister shop at the Roppongi Hills complex (Minato-ku, Roppongi 6-4-1) is not as crowded as the main shop in Ginza.

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.

British chef Daniel Calvert’s resume includes time at Epicure in Paris and Per Se in New York, and most recently the position of head chef at Belon in Hong Kong. His elegant, modern French cuisine skillfully incorporates Japanese ingredients such as sake lees, Hokkaido scallops, and hotaru ika (firefly squid). The tempting dishes include osetra caviar with avocado and sudachi citrus, as well as kinki (thornyhead fish) with crispy skin and saffron bouillabaisse. The restaurant, located at the Four Seasons Marunouchi just next to Tokyo Station, has exquisite service and an extensive wine list.

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.

Since 2014, Roman chef and pizzaiolo Daniele Cason has been serving Roman-style pizza made from a blend of five organic Italian flours and 80 percent Italian water. The dough is fermented for 48 hours, resulting in a delicate and airy crust. The pizza has been voted the best in Asia on the 50 Top Pizza list, and Cason was named the 2022 pizza-maker of the year by the Italian awards body. The restaurant is on the 38th floor of the Mandarin Oriental hotel in the quiet Nihonbashi district. It has only eight seats at the marble countertop overlooking the open kitchen and pizza oven. Dinner is omakase-style with two seatings, and diners try eight different pizzas. The set meal begins with a pizzino of mascarpone, fior di latte cheese, olives tapenade, and truffles, but if you go at lunch be sure to order it as an appetizer. Toppings change throughout the seasons, drawing from Japan’s diverse offerings such as sansai (mountain vegetables), Nagano prosciutto, and Sado Island fresh figs.

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.

Pelican Bakery has been baking white bread since 1942. The bread is so popular that all orders must be placed in advance for the privilege of purchasing a loaf. Pelican Café, which recently opened down the street from the bakery, is a chance for more people to try the sought-after bread. The menu focuses on toast and sandwiches, including a thick-cut ham katsu and another composed of fresh fruit with whipped cream. There are also toasts topped with cheese, sweet adzuki beans and butter, or simply butter and jam. The cafe is often busy, mostly with young people. Pelican is near the famous Asakusa district, home of the Asakusa Shrine, making it an easy stop for sightseers.

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.