If you’re traveling to Tokyo, you may want to track down one of the world’s smallest pizzerias just for a novel experience. However, The Pizza Bar on 38th is more than just a novelty: This tiny restaurant is considered among the best in the world.
Located on the 38th floor of the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Nihonbashi, Tokyo’s historic financial district, the Pizza Bar has only eight seats, leading some commentators and guides to dub it the world’s smallest pizzeria. (As an aside, this is tough to objectively measure: For example, there’s a “pizza bike” in England that makes a similar claim, and while it seems physically smaller, it doesn’t appear to offer seating. So, the Pizza Bar may thus be the smallest dine-in pizzeria.)
The Pizza Bar only has bar seating (a marble bar, for a fancy touch), so diners can watch their pizzas being prepared and baked before them. And it seems that having such limited capacity means the restaurant can put a focus on quality. In the 2025 50 Top Pizza rankings, an Italian-based guide founded by food journalists to rank pizzerias by region and globally, it came in as No. 1 for the Asia-Pacific region for the third year in a row; it was also ranked No. 2 in the world (and has previously held the No. 3 and No. 4 positions globally in past years). Factors like the quality of ingredients, technique, service, and consistency all factored into this ranking. It has also earned repeated recognitions from Italian food and wine publisher Gambero Rosso, which award the restaurant awarded “three slices” for its quality (a bit like Michelin stars, three slices are the highest rating the company issues).
What to expect at the Pizza Bar on 38th
fornStudio/Shutterstock
If you get one of the very few seats at the Pizza Bar, know that you probably won’t just be ordering an individual pie of your choice. Rather unusually, the restaurant offers an omakase-style menu. While many might associate this term more with sushi restaurants, it means “to leave to somebody else” or “I’ll leave it up to you” in Japanese, meaning that basically, it’s the chef’s choice as to what you’re getting. You’ll get an appetizer, eight different pizza slices (six if you visit at lunch), and a dessert. The exact options vary seasonally, but can include classics like a simple marinara or Margherita with buffalo milk mozzarella, or more out-there options which have included a scallop-cauliflower slice, or one with duck salsiccia, ankimo (monkfish liver), and pickled carrot.
The chef behind them is Daniele Cason, an Italian chef who has led restaurants like La Pergola in Rome to receiving three Michelin stars (for the record, the Pizza Bar doesn’t have Michelin stars, although it’s still recommended by the guide). He’s interested in mixing his own heritage with Japanese ingredients (as you may have guessed by the inclusion of ankimo), but the dough seems firmly Italian: he uses organic Italian wheat and leaves the dough to ferment for 48 hours to ensure a light, fluffy texture once it comes out of the restaurant’s wood-fired brick oven.
If you’re hoping to get a taste, it would be wise to plan ahead. Reservations are snapped up lightning-fast, and are opened up two months in advance. There are four seatings per day: Two at lunch and two at dinner.
Dining and Cooking