Restaurant in Tokyo, Japan
One seating nightly. Book ahead or miss it.
Kodama is a focused French restaurant in Nishiazabu run by Chef Shusaku Toba, operating a single evening seating (6–8 pm) seven days a week. OAD-ranked in Japan's top restaurants for 2025 and recommended since 2023, it is the right call for a serious food traveller who has covered Tokyo's headline addresses and wants something more deliberate — and is currently easier to book than most of its French-dining peers.
If you have already eaten at the obvious Nishiazabu destinations and want something more deliberate, Kodama is worth the effort. Chef Shusaku Toba runs a French kitchen in a second-floor space that operates on a tight two-hour window every evening — no lunch service, no walk-in flexibility, no extended late-night option. The Opinionated About Dining ranking (Leading Restaurants in Japan, #591 in 2025; Recommended in 2023) signals consistent quality without the full pressure-cooker booking difficulty of a Michelin-starred room. A 4.7 Google rating across 18 reviews suggests the people who do find it leave satisfied.
Come on a second visit and the things that matter most become clearer: the constraint of a single evening seating (6–8 pm, seven days a week) is not a drawback — it is the structure of the experience. Toba is cooking for a room that turns over once, and that focus shows in execution. First-timers sometimes wrestle with the short window; returning guests tend to arrive early, settle in, and let the pacing do its job.
There is no lunch at Kodama. Hours are fixed at 6–8 pm every day of the week, which makes the lunch-versus-dinner question direct: if you want to eat here, dinner is your only option. That uniform schedule also removes the usual trade-off between a lighter midday menu at a lower price point and a full evening carte. For Tokyo French dining that does offer a lunch format , often at a meaningfully lower price , Florilège and L'Effervescence are the more flexible alternatives. If your schedule is fixed around evenings, Kodama's consistency across all seven nights is an asset: there is no premium night or off-night dynamic to second-guess.
The single daily seating at 6 pm means the room is not divided into early and late service , everyone starts together. For the explorer who wants to understand a restaurant rather than just eat at it, that uniformity is useful context: Toba is cooking one service, not managing multiple turns. The leading day-of-week approach is mid-week if you want a quieter room; weekend tables fill faster given the neighbourhood's foot traffic in Nishiazabu. Booking is listed as easy relative to the top-tier Tokyo French rooms, but that can shift as OAD recognition compounds. Book as soon as your dates are confirmed.
Tokyo's French dining tier is deep. At the leading end, Sézanne and ESqUISSE carry Michelin weight and corresponding booking difficulty. Château Restaurant Joël Robuchon sits in a different category entirely , grand, formal, and priced accordingly. Kodama operates below that tier in terms of profile and presumably price, which makes it a practical entry point for a serious food traveller who has already covered the headline addresses. The OAD recognition gives it a credible floor of quality without the full commitment a three-starred room demands.
For context across Japan, the same traveller who books Kodama in Tokyo might also be tracking HAJIME in Osaka, Gion Sasaki in Kyoto, or akordu in Nara. Internationally, the French dining comparison set includes Les Amis in Singapore and Hotel de Ville Crissier. Kodama sits closer to the focused, chef-driven end of that spectrum than to the grand-institution end.
| Detail | Kodama | Florilège | L'Effervescence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cuisine | French | French | French |
| Price tier | Not listed | ¥¥¥ | ¥¥¥¥ |
| Lunch available | No | Yes | Yes |
| Hours | 6–8 pm daily | Multiple seatings | Multiple seatings |
| Booking difficulty | Easy | Moderate | Hard |
| OAD ranked | Yes (#591, 2025) | Yes | Yes |
Planning a broader trip? Pearl covers the full picture: our full Tokyo restaurants guide, Tokyo hotels, Tokyo bars, Tokyo wineries, and Tokyo experiences are all worth checking before you finalise your itinerary. Further afield, Goh in Fukuoka, 1000 in Yokohama, and 6 in Okinawa round out the serious dining circuit across Japan.
Dinner is the only option , Kodama does not serve lunch. The restaurant operates a single evening seating from 6–8 pm every day. If you need a lunch slot for a French meal at a comparable level, Florilège offers lunch at a lower price point than its dinner menu, which is the more practical alternative.
Booking is currently rated easy relative to the top-tier Tokyo French rooms, but with OAD ranking momentum, that can change. Book two to three weeks out for weekends; mid-week tables are more available at shorter notice. Confirm your dates and book immediately , there is no benefit to waiting.
No bar seating information is available in the venue record. Given the restaurant occupies a second-floor space and runs a single evening seating, it is most likely a seated-dinner-only format. Contact the venue directly to confirm seating options before planning around a counter or bar arrangement.
No formal dress code is listed, but the context matters: OAD-ranked French dining in Nishiazabu, a neighbourhood where smart-casual is the baseline. Business casual or above is a safe call. The room is not listed as a grand formal setting, so there is no need for black tie, but showing up in sportswear would read as mismatched for the format.
No specific dietary policy is available in the venue data, and there is no website or phone number listed publicly. The practical move is to contact the restaurant directly when booking and flag any restrictions at that point , French tasting-menu formats typically require advance notice to adjust courses meaningfully.
The venue data does not confirm a bar counter option at Kodama. Given the fixed 6–8 pm single-seating format, the room operates as one unified service rather than a drop-in bar experience. check the venue's official channels to confirm seating configurations before assuming counter availability.
Kodama is a second-floor French restaurant in Nishiazabu with a strict single-seating dinner format and an OAD listing — the setting calls for neat, considered clothing at minimum. In Tokyo's French dining tier, that typically means no trainers or casual streetwear. Treat it like a proper dinner reservation rather than a neighbourhood bistro.
No dietary policy is confirmed in the available data. French omakase formats generally require advance notice of restrictions rather than accommodating them on the night, so flag any requirements when booking. If a specific diet makes French tasting-menu formats difficult, Kodama may not be the right fit.
There is no lunch at Kodama. Hours are fixed at 6–8 pm seven days a week, so the decision is simply whether the single nightly seating works for your schedule. If it does, that format — one sitting, everyone starting together — tends to produce more focused service than split-sitting restaurants in the same tier.
Book as early as possible. A single 6 pm seating every night with OAD recognition in 2023 and 2025 means the room fills without much margin. Tokyo's top French tables at venues like Sézanne require months of lead time; Kodama's booking window is not confirmed but erring toward 4–6 weeks minimum is sensible.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
