Ichirin

Ichirin, Kagurazaka: A Michelin-Starred Japanese Kitchen Worth the Effort to Book

At the ¥¥¥ price point, Ichirin sits in a compelling position among Tokyo's serious Japanese restaurants: more accessible than the ¥¥¥¥ kaiseki heavyweights, but carrying the credibility of a Michelin star (2024) and an Opinionated About Dining ranking of #570 in Japan for 2025. For the diner who has already worked through the obvious Kagurazaka options and wants something with genuine technical depth at a price that doesn't require an expense account, this is where to look next.

Chef Mikizo Hashimoto runs the kitchen on the third floor of a residential-scale building in Fukuromachi, in Shinjuku City's Kagurazaka neighbourhood. Kagurazaka has long been one of Tokyo's most concentrated pockets of serious Japanese dining — Kagurazaka Ishikawa is the area's anchor, and the neighbourhood produces consistent Michelin coverage year after year. Ichirin earns its place in that company. The Google rating sits at 4.6 from 51 reviews, which is a small but telling sample: in a category where dissatisfied guests rarely stay quiet, a score that high on limited reviews points to a kitchen that is not making many errors.

What the Kitchen Does Well

The editorial angle here is cuisine mastery — what Ichirin does technically within the Japanese tradition that justifies prioritising it over peers. Without fabricating dish descriptions, the Michelin recognition and the OAD placement together tell a clear story: this is a kitchen that has been assessed by multiple rigorous evaluators and passed. Michelin's Tokyo inspectors are among the most demanding in the world, operating in a city with more starred restaurants than any other. A one-star designation in this city means the kitchen is producing food at a level that rewards the trip specifically. The OAD ranking, which is driven by votes from frequent professional diners rather than anonymous inspectors, adds a second data layer: this is a room that people who eat seriously return to and recommend to peers.

For a regular who has visited once and is deciding whether to return, the question is what the kitchen's depth looks like across multiple visits. The ¥¥¥ price tier suggests a menu structured to deliver precision without the ceremony overhead of the leading kaiseki rooms. If you found the first visit technically strong, the case for a return is direct: you are not paying for a performance, you are paying for the food, and the evidence suggests the food is consistent.

Timing Your Visit

There is no published hours data in our record, so call ahead or use the reservation platform to confirm service times before planning around it. What the booking difficulty rating of Hard does confirm: treat this like you would any serious one-star Tokyo room. Do not assume availability within two or three weeks of your target date. For weekend evenings, six to eight weeks is a reasonable planning horizon. If you have flexibility, a weekday dinner booking is usually easier to secure at this level of restaurant without sacrificing the quality of the experience , the kitchen does not change based on the day of the week.

Kagurazaka rewards an early-evening arrival if your schedule allows. The neighbourhood itself is worth time before or after the meal: it is one of the few parts of Tokyo where the pre-war street grid has survived, and the walk from the Kagurazaka or Ushigome-Kagurazaka stations takes you past a density of small Japanese restaurants that makes the area useful for planning a longer evening. See our full Tokyo restaurants guide for more context on planning a multi-stop evening in this part of the city.

Practical Details

The address is 3-4 Fukuromachi, Shinjuku City, third floor of Clère Kagurazaka 14. There is no website or phone number in our record; reservation platforms , Tableall, Omakase, or direct contact through Google Maps , are the practical routes in. Dress smart-casual at minimum: the ¥¥¥ price tier and the Michelin context make that the baseline expectation for any room at this level in Tokyo, even without a published dress code. No seat count is listed, but third-floor spaces in this type of Kagurazaka building typically run small, which is consistent with the booking difficulty rating.

For wider Tokyo planning, our full Tokyo hotels guide, bars guide, and experiences guide cover the full picture. If you are building a Japan itinerary beyond Tokyo, Gion Sasaki in Kyoto, HAJIME in Osaka, and Kashiwaya Osaka Senriyama are the comparable-tier options worth stacking into a longer trip. For other serious Japanese restaurants in Tokyo's Kagurazaka and Azabu circuits, Azabu Kadowaki, Myojaku, and Ginza Fukuju are the names to cross-reference for this tier of cooking. Jingumae Higuchi is another one-star-adjacent option worth considering if your dates at Ichirin fall through.

FAQ

• How far ahead should I book Ichirin? Six to eight weeks for weekend evenings is the safe answer at a Michelin-starred room with a Hard booking difficulty rating in Tokyo. Weekday dinners may open closer to the date, but do not count on two to three weeks being enough. Use reservation platforms , Tableall or Omakase , and check regularly for cancellations if your window is tight.
• Is Ichirin worth the price? At ¥¥¥, yes, for what you get relative to peers. You are paying for a kitchen with a 2024 Michelin star and an OAD top-600 Japan ranking at a price tier below the ¥¥¥¥ kaiseki rooms. If your alternative is spending more at RyuGin or L'Effervescence, Ichirin is the stronger value proposition for Japanese cuisine specifically. If you want to spend less, you are giving up meaningful technical depth.
• Is Ichirin good for a special occasion? Yes, with a caveat on group size. The small-room profile of a third-floor Kagurazaka space makes it better suited for two to four people than a larger group. For a dinner where the food is the occasion rather than the surroundings, Ichirin works well. If you need a grander room or a private dining option, look at Azabu Kadowaki or Kagurazaka Ishikawa instead.
• What should I wear to Ichirin? Smart-casual is the floor. No published dress code exists, but a Michelin-starred Japanese restaurant at the ¥¥¥ level in Tokyo operates with an implicit expectation: no athletic wear, no overly casual streetwear. A button-down shirt or equivalent for men, and smart casual for women, will be appropriate. You do not need to dress for a formal Western dining room, but do not underdress.
• Can I eat at the bar at Ichirin? No seat count or seating configuration data is in our record, so we cannot confirm bar seating. In small third-floor Japanese restaurants of this type in Kagurazaka, counter seating is common, but whether walk-in counter spots are available is not something we can confirm. Book a table and ask at the time of reservation if counter seating is important to you. Myojaku is a counter-first option in the same city tier if that format is your priority.

Also Worth Knowing

For other Japan destinations at a comparable level of ambition, akordu in Nara, Goh in Fukuoka, 1000 in Yokohama, and 6 in Okinawa each represent the serious-dining tier in their respective cities. Isshisoden Nakamura in Kyoto is the Kyoto equivalent for traditional Japanese cooking at this level. See our Tokyo wineries guide for pairing options if you are planning around the beverage side of the evening.