Mitaka

Is Mitaka worth booking for kaiseki in Tokyo?

Yes — and for serious kaiseki in Minato, it belongs near the leading of your shortlist. Mitaka has held a Tabelog Silver Award in 2026 and 2025, earned Silver again in 2021, and has been recognised in the Tabelog Japanese Cuisine Tokyo "Top 100" in 2021, 2023, and 2025. Opinionated About Dining ranks it #248 among Japan's leading restaurants in 2025. At JPY 40,000–49,999 per head at dinner, this sits in the upper tier of Tokyo kaiseki pricing, but the award consistency across six years suggests the kitchen earns it. If you are visiting Tokyo for the first time and want to commit to one high-end kaiseki experience, Mitaka is a well-supported choice. If you want a broader picture of what Tokyo's Japanese cuisine scene offers, start with our full Tokyo restaurants guide.

What to expect on a first visit

Mitaka is a reservation-only kaiseki restaurant on the ground floor of the Hōtoku Building in Nishishinbashi, Minato City. The neighbourhood is a commercial district roughly 350 metres from Uchisaiwaicho Station, placing it squarely in the heart of central Tokyo's business and government quarter. It is not a destination restaurant in a dramatic setting — this is a quiet, low-profile address where the cooking does the work. Evening service runs Monday through Saturday, 6–10 pm. Sunday is closed.

On arrival, the experience is kaiseki-format: a structured progression of seasonal courses under chef Takatoshi Inoue. Kaiseki at this price point in Tokyo typically means a long, multi-course dinner , expect to spend the full service window if you are engaging properly with the format. The kitchen operates on a reservation-only basis, so there are no walk-in options. AMEX is accepted; electronic money and QR code payments are not. Parking is not available, so plan to arrive by train or taxi. The restaurant is entirely non-smoking and does not have private rooms, though private hire of the full space is listed as available.

For first-timers at this level of kaiseki, the format can feel demanding , courses arrive at a set pace, portions are precise rather than generous, and the experience rewards attention rather than conversation. That is not a criticism; it is what kaiseki at this level is. If you are new to the format and want to calibrate expectations, consider pairing this visit with a review of similar kaiseki venues , Ifuki in Kyoto or Ankyu in Kyoto give useful reference points for how the format varies across regions.

Building a multi-visit strategy

Mitaka is a kaiseki restaurant operating a dinner-only format (lunch is not offered), which means a multi-visit approach focuses on seasonal rotation rather than format variation. Kaiseki menus in Japan change with each of the four seasons , and often more granularly, tracking specific ingredients as they peak through spring, summer, autumn, and winter. A first visit in winter, for example, will look substantially different from a return visit in late spring or early autumn. If you are planning two visits in a single trip to Japan, structure them to span at least one seasonal inflection point.

For visitors building a broader kaiseki itinerary across Japan, Mitaka in Tokyo pairs well with Gion Sasaki in Kyoto for a direct style comparison , Kyoto kaiseki tends toward more overt tradition, while Tokyo interpretations often carry a subtler contemporary inflection. Further afield, HAJIME in Osaka and Goh in Fukuoka offer strong contrasts if your itinerary reaches beyond Tokyo. Within Tokyo's Japanese cuisine tier, Kikunoi Tokyo, Hirosaku, Ajihiro, Akasaka Ogino, and Aoyama Jin each represent different points on the spectrum of what serious kaiseki and traditional Japanese dining looks like in this city.

How Mitaka compares to other Tokyo kaiseki and fine dining

See the comparison section below for a full peer breakdown, including RyuGin and others in Tokyo's top-tier dining set. For a wider view of what to do and where to stay around a Mitaka visit, see our Tokyo hotels guide, our Tokyo bars guide, our Tokyo experiences guide, and our Tokyo wineries guide. If your trip extends beyond Tokyo, akordu in Nara and 1000 in Yokohama are worth considering as part of a broader Kanto itinerary, while 6 in Okinawa represents a very different end of Japan's fine dining range.

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