Explore Tokyo's culinary culture with the people who create it
OVERVIEW
Day1:Take a Walk Back in Time to Edo-Tokyo→ Dinner on a Yakatabune or at an Izakaya
Day2:Tour the Toyosu Market With a Chef → Visit the Iconic Tsukiji Outer
Market → Learn to Make Edomae-Style Sushi →Try Edomae Seafood in Italian Fine Dining
Day3:Drink in Japanese Culture Through Tea Utensils → Experience a Modern
Japanese Tea Ceremony → Try Your Hand at Japanese Crafts → Try Kaiseki with Tsukiji’s
Fresh Produce
Day4:Take a Private Tour of a Sake Brewery → Spend an Afternoon on a Private
Farm → Dinner at MoonFlower Sagaya Ginza Art by teamLab
Day5:Sample Sweets and Shop for Souvenirs → Departure
DAY 1
AM
around 2hours
Take a Walk Back in Time to Edo-Tokyo
On your first day, travel back in time to Edo (1603–1868) and explore the roots of Tokyo's food culture.
This was the era when now-famous dishes such as sushi, grilled unagi (eel), soba noodles, and tempura were
created or gained
mainstream acceptance. Through their fascinating artifacts, the Edo-Tokyo Museum and the Fukagawa Edo
Museum will help you revisit the era and its stories.
*The Edo-Tokyo Museum will be closed for major renovations from April 1, 2022 to March 31, 2026
Wind down in the evening Edo-style on a yakatabune boat or at an izakaya. Providing food, drinks, and
entertainment as you float down a river, a yakatabune lets you dine like an Edo aristocrat. Or enjoy
drinks, pub food, and interaction
with locals at an izakaya, one of the casual watering holes that evolved from sake bars in the Edo period.
DAY 2
AM
around 1hour
Tour the Toyosu Market With a Chef
Begin day two bright and early at Toyosu Market, where Tokyo’s freshest catch is sold wholesale.
Experience the excitement of its famous tuna auctions, and let a sushi chef guide you through the world’s
biggest seafood market while
showing you how to pick the freshest fish.
The original seafood haven, Tsukiji may have moved its wholesale market to Toyosu, but its lively outer
market remains open as before. Browse over 400 shops, soak up its chaotic charm, and sample fresh sushi
and snacks. A chef can even
tour the market with you and provide expert pointers on selecting produce.
Unique to Tokyo, Edomae sushi is prepared with marinated and preserved seafood caught near Tokyo Bay.
Learn the art of making the delicacy from a professional sushi chef, who can tailor the class to your
skill level and goals. Add
sushi-making to your repertoire, and enjoy delicious sushi for lunch!
For dinner, enjoy a creative Italian-Japanese take on Edomae seafood at Michelin 1-star restaurant Faro.
Edomae refers to seafood caught in Tokyo Bay, usually marinated and preserved before being served as
sushi. Helmed by chef Kotaro
Noda, who spent two decades of his culinary career in Italy, Faro sources seasonal Japanese ingredients
for its innovative dishes, which include cutting-edge vegan options.
In a Japanese tea ceremony, the utensils are key to the ritual's elegant aesthetic. Explore Japan's tea
culture with a visit to Ippodo Gallery, which focuses on tea-related artworks. Admire treasured artifacts
in its tea room while you
listen to stories from the owner, who is well connected with artists domestically and worldwide.
Experience a Japanese tea ceremony through the unique, relaxed takes offered by modern Tokyo teahouses.
One of them is Sokkon, where you can enjoy matcha and conversation with your host, a kaiseki meal to accompany
your tea, or even original cocktails in a tatami tea room-turned-bar.
Japan’s many traditional crafts are admired worldwide for their beauty, intricacy, and quality. With
guidance from expert instructors, try a Japanese craft such as pottery or metalworking, to make your own
bowl or forge your own kitchen
knife.
NIGHT
around 2hours
Try Kaiseki with Tsukiji’s Fresh Produce
You’ve shopped for the ingredients — now taste the fresh produce from Tsukiji Outer Market, turned into
exquisite kaiseki meals by your host and chef. The refined cuisine offers many
small, elegant dishes, meant to
be slowly savored as you appreciate the fresh, seasonal flavors.
Visit the brewery of Toshimaya, Tokyo’s oldest sake shop. It produces sake, shirozake, and mirin, with its star product being the award-winning Kinkon.
Considered one of Tokyo’s representative sakes, Kinkon is also
the only sacred sake used at Meiji Jingu Shrine and Kanda Myojin Shrine.
In the afternoon, get a taste of laidback pastoral life at a private farm. Meet friendly locals, harvest
vegetables and other produce, and try Japanese home-style cooking prepared with the fruits of your
labor.
Conceived by Sagaya Ginza and teamLab, MoonFlower marries dining and immersive art. As you enjoy a
12-course meal featuring premium Saga beef, watch individual worlds filled with digital flora and fauna
unfold from each dish, dance
across the dinnerware, then meld together to create a single, continuous world.
On your last day, spend an unhurried morning before your journey home at Higashiya Man Marunouchi, an
elegant sweets shop and tea salon in the heart of Tokyo. Try freshly steamed buns and peruse its selection
of teas, then pick up
delicious sweets and exquisite tableware to take home as souvenirs.
Your whirlwind adventure in Tokyo comes to a close — but let your connection to the city stay open. Tokyo
and its never-ending cultural, natural, and culinary appeal awaits your next visit.