Ginza Kitagawa (*) – Tabelog Silver – Tokyo, Japan

I recently returned from a two-week trip to Tokyo, where I ate at 12 fine dining establishments (7 of which were sushiyas), as well as a number of casual spots. The summary of each of these visits can be found at the following link: https://www.reddit.com/r/finedining/s/fu79pmg4dp

An extension of the Tabelog gold-rated and Michelin two-star Ginza Shinohara, Ginza Kitagawa opened in 2022 as a place for young chefs to hone their craft. A Michelin star followed in the 2023 guide, and since 2024 the restaurant has been awarded a Tabelog Silver award. Despite the accolades (and especially considering how hard Shinohara is to reserve), Ginza Kitagawa does not present a problem in terms of reservations; I booked through Omakase, where there always seems to be ample availability.

As the name suggests, Ginza Kitagawa is helmed by Kazuyuki Kitagawa, a chef who has undertaken training at many restaurants, including Ginza Shinohara, Naruse, Sushi Namba, Sushi Ryujiro and Ginza Oishi. This eclecticism of cuisines and techniques is in evidence at Ginza Kitagawa, which offers Kappo cuisine that incorporates various cultural touchstones, from tempura to sushi, via yakiniku.

10 guests are seated around the white cypress counter, with a view onto the barbeque and frying stations (the former being separated by a wooden sliding door, in order to stop the smoke from billowing out). While Kitagawa-san speaks primarily in Japanese during the service, with a smattering of English here and there, some of the other chefs communicate with the English-speaking guests. These descriptions of the food may be more abridged than those given by Kitagawa-san, but this is an occupational hazard for any non-Japanese-speaking guests when dining in Japan.

The menu began not with the beautifully decorated hassun, which was still being adorned with Ginkgo and Acer leaves while the first appetizer was placed in front of guests, but with a refreshing, punchy bowl of uni and yuba tofu skin in a rice vinegar jelly. I had already had a fair amount of uni up to this point in the trip, but this as a first dish was excellent, the sweetness from the jelly, the smooth salinity from the uni and the savoury tofu skin creating a balance that to some might veer more towards the sweet, but was one I found to be a welcome and intensely flavoured start to proceedings.

The hassun followed, with only the fried ginkgo nuts (slightly salted), the ikura and greens, and cured mackerel being initially on display, the rest (which included tofu in a sesame sauce, and fried grouper) hidden within several stone and ceramic boxes. Tempura sweet bell pepper (the batter being distinctly delicate and crispy) followed, which was succeeded by anago sushi and a light broth of snow crab with fried tofu.

As the menu proceeded, more robust flavours were introduced, starting with the fried abalone, which was coated in a paste made from abalone liver and black garlic. Bursting with umami, the paste could easily have been cloying, but instead adhered only to the abalone and not to the roof of one's mouth.
Battered ayu (sweetfish) followed, which was served with a savoury jelly that added a welcome textural component, while after this was served one of the highlights of the meal: cold soba topped with sakura ebi. The ebi had been given the tempura treatment, and though such a simple dish, the textural differences as well as the subtle flavouring made this a standout, and a dish that I could happily eat on a semi-daily basis.

And yet, this was not the best dish of the meal. In joint-second place was the deep-fried fugu, accompanied by a slice of lemon and coming with a (slight) additional cost to the standard menu price of 31,900 JPY. Also in joint-second place was the behemoth of an onigiri that closed out the savoury courses of the meal. While yes, you can choose to have the onigiri any size you like, and yes, though I was full by this point anyway…where's the fun in going small? Scattered with pieces of tempura bell pepper and with just a touch of spice thrown in, the final savoury dish really speaks to that part of a person's brain that enjoys going into a konbini to check out the onigiri selection.

But the clear winner, and one of the best bites of the entire trip, was the beef, pictured second. This beef made me book a dinner reservation at Nikuya Tanaka Ginza when I got back to my hotel, because I had never tasted beef as melt-in-the-mouth and deeply rich as this. Coming from a variety of Hida beef that is above A5 grade, pictures can never do justice to just how juicy this beef was, made all the better by an excellent sear to the point of caramelization. While unfortunately the beef at Nikuya Tanaka could not match this, at least the Hida beef from Ginza Kitagawa will live long in the memory.

At around 2.5 hours, my meal was exceptional from start to finish. Sure, the matsutake mushrooms with rice towards the end of the meal were fairly bland, and could have done with some form of seasoning, but the bareness of the course made sense in the context of the meal, where flavours had been building from the very start, crescendoing with the Hida beef, and then falling away to more gentle and soothing dishes to round out the meal.

My fifth fine dining meal of the trip, Ginza Kitagawa was also my favourite non-sushi (and second favourite overall), due to almost every dish being flavourful and interesting. A journey of a meal, this joins rarefied company as being one of the best meals I've had.