Tokyo Night Food Tour
TOKYO FOOD TOUR FOR THE CULTURALLY CURIOUS
Join a lively, local Tokyo evening tour where most tourists don't visit.
Tokyo Food Tours in English
Ready to leave Shinjuku and Shibuya behind for an evening of seriously local sights, people, and foods? Come join us on this all-inclusive Tokyo food tour! Let us show you fun and interesting old parts of Tokyo where — unlike those mainstream entertainment zones — it’s pretty stunning to see a visitor from abroad.
Despite being just a few minutes from Shinagawa Station, you’ll feel like you’re amidst only locals…plus our small group of no more than six.
Traveling elsewhere on your visit to Japan? Check out our Osaka Foodie Tour and our Kyoto Food Tour to experience each city’s unique food culture!
Historic Landmarks
These very old parts of Tokyo are overflowing with history, some from very long ago, and some from the post-war era.
Professional Guide
Real English, real skills, and great personalities. Our guides have the knowledge and expertise to provide you with interesting, fun, and memorable tours.
Fully-Narrated Tour
Our tours never leave you to wander about on your own. Your guide stays with you the whole time to answer questions, offer insights, and share plenty of laughs.
Easy Access
This tour starts just outside a rail or subway station, making meeting up an anxiety-free experience.
A Tokyo Evening Tour Overview
Your evening tour of Tokyo starts at JR Oimachi Station, which — despite being just one stop from Shinagawa with its shinkansen (bullet train) and big-building modernity — is truly a world apart. Here, the scale is much more human with many streets wide enough to only accommodate pedestrians.
We can’t wait to walk you around and show you all the various nightlife spots, with bars, funkier bars, hostess clubs (not to worry, this tour is entirely suitable for teenagers and up), and more scattered about.
Since we’ll be walking around in the early evening, the alleyways and restaurants will be busy with “salarymen” just off work and others who are enjoying a little happy hour and maybe some food as well.
Adding the Food to Our Tokyo Food Tour
We will visit three different restaurants over the course of the evening, but the specific ones we choose each tour can vary. Regardless, they will most likely be “tachinomi”.
Tachinomi are restaurants where you enjoy small plates of food and drinks while standing at a bar or small tables. To be clear, these are not “bars” for drinking and possibly a snack, but rather full-fledged restaurants done in a standing format. Since most of the patrons have been sitting at desks all day, it makes for a nice change — and a social one, too.
We frequently eat yakitori (grilled chicken on sticks), slow cooked meats, seafood, and a whole host of other treats as well. You can count on trying at least 10 different dishes over the course of the night across the three restaurants. With a drink (alcoholic or non) included at each spot, the evening has the potential to flow even smoother!
Starting with a beer is the classic move, but as your evening continues, we’d love to introduce you to shochu or sake as well. We very often go to a sake-specialty tachinomi for our third and last stop of the evening.
Touring Not Just One Neighborhood, But Two!
Augmenting our Oimachi walkabout experience is the stroll awaiting us in Kamata, which is just 6 minutes further down the train line (your fare is included).
This area is not as saturated with bars and such, but rather more about food and pachinko (the Japanese game that’s not gambling, but is).
There’s also a large supermarket we’d like to walk you through for a primer on Japanese food preparation. Despite it not generally being included on a foodie tour in Tokyo, you may find visiting this fairly large supermarket to be surprisingly interesting and informative.
It’s certainly not something you could do in Shinjuku!
With the edutainment behind us, it will be back to the food. Depending on the night, we’ll either go to two restaurants in Oimachi and one in Kamata, or two in Kamata and one in Oimachi.
Some of this depends on your eating predilections as well. Please do let us know in advance, because we are happy to accommodate vegetarians or just about any other dietary restriction.
Spend an Evening in Tokyo Like a Local
Don’t get us wrong: Shinjuku and Shibuya are must-sees in Tokyo. That’s why so many other food tours go there. But if you want to get a more honest, local vibe, you’re going to need to get a bit of distance from the high-rent, chain restaurant-dominated landscape.
We’ve carefully chosen Oimachi and Kamata because they are authentic areas of Tokyo, they’re friendly to foreigners, and they have some noteworthy food and drink, too.
Come join us to feel like a local!
Itinerary for Our Evening Food Tour in Tokyo
JR Oimachi Station has been here since 1901, but the area doesn’t quite look that old. Still, you’ll get great pics in the restaurant- and bar-lined backstreets that are just wide enough for two people to walk abreast. It’s a very Japanese vibe. We’ll give you a nightlife primer on our walkabout, and also stop at one or two restaurants. We’ll spend about 75 minutes in Oimachi.
The six-minute train ride to Kamata gives us some time to chat about Tokyo in general. And then, we hit the ground running (well, not really running), checking out the neighborhood pachinko hall just outside the station. After that, we spend some time learning interesting things about Japanese food shopping and cooking in general as we walk and talk through a local supermarket. We usually spend about 45 minutes between restaurants to build your appetite back up.
We’ll go to one or two more restaurants here in Kamata (depending on if we went to one or two in Oimachi). There are a few we like to choose from, but we’d be extra excited to show you our favorite sake (Japanese rice wine). We’ll choose some sake based on your taste preferences, and we can almost guarantee you’re going to like sake more after this stop!
Quick Tips for Our Tokyo Foodie Tour
There are a few things we’d like you to take note of before joining us.
- The legal drinking age in Japan is 20
- While not overtly risque, the tour includes commentary and contents that may not be suitable for pre-teens
- Please come wearing comfortable shoes, and dress for some time both indoors and outdoors
- Unfortunately, we cannot wait for late-comers, so do plan on arriving a bit early
Inclusions:
- A dinner’s worth of food across three different restaurants
- Up to three alcoholic or non-alcoholic drinks (one at each stop).
- Train fare between our two neighborhoods
Exclusions:
- Drinks beyond the three provided (you can purchase more directly from the restaurant if you wish)
Options:
- Would you like to have a guide come early and escort you to the tour start point? This is available for central Tokyo addresses (along or within the JR Yamanote Line) or on those on Odaiba for 5,000 yen per group, plus your train fare. For pickup points beyond these areas, please inquire.
Historic and Cultural Landmarks
Though we’ll be exploring old neighborhoods, to be honest, there isn’t anything that could be considered a landmark in that sense. However, culturally, there is a laundry list of things to see and immerse yourself in! You’re sure to remember these places long after the tour has ended.
Easy Access
We start our tour at JR Oimachi Station’s East exit. There are many exits, and one is even called “Central East exit”, so it is very important to use the exit that is labeled as “East exit”.
Our Tour Guides
We've got around a dozen guides at your service. Here we showcase a few of our most active ones.
Kevin
Shoji
Mardi
Dan
Levy
Suzie
Not profiled here are guides who speak Spanish (Kyoto, in addition to Dan in Osaka), French (Osaka, Kyoto, Tokyo), and German (Kyoto and Tokyo).
Pickup Point
Please meet us at the Oimachi Station's JR East Exit. Note that there is something called the Central East Exit, but you don't want that.