Restaurant in Tokyo, Japan
Nara-rooted Spanish creativity worth booking.
TOKi in Shimbashi is a creative Spanish-contemporary restaurant supervised by akordu of Nara, translating ancient-capital produce through a modern Spanish lens at the ¥¥¥ tier. Booking is easy by Tokyo standards, the setting suits dates and quiet celebrations, and the seasonal tasting menu rewards repeat visits as Nara's produce calendar shifts. A well-priced entry point for serious creative cuisine in Tokyo.
Yes, if you want a creative Spanish-contemporary menu rooted in Nara Prefecture's ingredients, served in the heart of Shimbashi at a price point that sits a tier below Tokyo's most expensive tasting restaurants. TOKi is supervised by akordu in Nara, a restaurant that applies modern Spanish technique to ancient-capital produce, and this Tokyo outpost functions as a deliberate bridge between those two worlds. The format is composed and focused, making it a sound choice for a date, a quiet business meal, or a celebration dinner where you want genuine culinary ambition without the full ceremony of a ¥¥¥¥ kaiseki house.
TOKi occupies the second floor of the SMBC Shimbashi Building in Minato City, positioned inside a space that also showcases Nara Prefecture's attractions. That context matters: the menu reads less like a standalone restaurant concept and more like an edited argument for why Nara's seasonal ingredients deserve serious attention. The menu format itself is described as pleated like an accordion, suggesting a folding-book structure, with dish names written to prompt the imagination rather than describe ingredients literally. The cuisine is light and creative, shaped by Spanish contemporary technique filtered through Japanese seasonal thinking. If you have eaten at L'Effervescence and appreciated how French discipline can serve Japanese produce, TOKi operates on a comparable premise — but through a Spanish lens and at a lower price tier.
For special occasions, the proposition is solid. The setting is calm rather than loud, the cooking asks for attention, and the Nara-to-Tokyo-to-Spain concept gives the meal a genuine through-line that holds across courses. It is a better fit for two or a small group than for a large party, given both the nature of the tasting format and the second-floor setting.
Because the menu draws on Nara's seasonal produce and carries poetic dish names that rotate with the kitchen's direction, TOKi rewards more than one visit. On a first visit, follow the full menu sequence without modification — the accordion structure is designed to be read start to finish, and skipping courses or substituting heavily will break the internal logic of the meal. This visit is about understanding the Nara-Spain connection that akordu has built and how it translates to a Tokyo dining room.
A second visit makes sense in a different season. Nara's produce calendar shifts markedly between spring, summer, and autumn, and a menu this tightly tied to ingredient provenance will feel meaningfully different six months later. If you can align a return visit with the transition between two seasons, the contrast in the menu's character becomes the point of the meal rather than a coincidence. For comparison, RyuGin operates on a similar seasonal logic at the ¥¥¥¥ tier , TOKi offers a comparable seasonal attentiveness at a more accessible price.
A third visit, for those who have already mapped the seasonal range, is the moment to request guidance from the floor on which courses are carrying the most interesting produce that week. The kitchen's relationship to Nara means that within any given menu, certain dishes will reflect very specific short-window ingredients. Asking for that steer in advance of sitting down is the move that separates a routine visit from a well-timed one.
TOKi is located in Shimbashi, Minato City, which is one of Tokyo's better-connected business districts and direct to reach by rail. The venue is on the second floor of the SMBC Shimbashi Building; the building's frontage has both a staircase and elevator on the right side, so the access is manageable. Booking difficulty is rated easy, which makes this a lower-pressure reservation than comparable creative-cuisine addresses in Tokyo such as Florilège or Crony. For those planning a wider Tokyo itinerary, see our full Tokyo restaurants guide, Tokyo hotels guide, Tokyo bars guide, and Tokyo experiences guide. If the akordu concept interests you and you are travelling beyond Tokyo, HAJIME in Osaka, Gion Sasaki in Kyoto, and Goh in Fukuoka represent the strongest regional alternatives for creative tasting-format dining. For international points of comparison on the Spanish-contemporary-meets-local-produce model, Lazy Bear in San Francisco and Le Bernardin in New York City offer useful contrasts in how kitchens build a menu concept around provenance at high price points.
Price tier: ¥¥¥. Cuisine: Contemporary, Spanish Contemporary. Booking difficulty: Easy. Location: 2F, SMBC Shimbashi Building, 1-8-4 Shimbashi, Minato City, Tokyo.
TOKi is a creative tasting-format restaurant supervised by akordu, a Nara restaurant that applies Spanish contemporary technique to the produce of Nara Prefecture. The menu is structured like an accordion, with poetic dish names designed to prompt curiosity rather than describe ingredients plainly. First-timers should go with the full menu sequence as written , the meal is designed as a cohesive progression. At the ¥¥¥ price tier, it sits below most of Tokyo's headline tasting rooms, making it an accessible entry point for creative cuisine in the city. Allow a full evening and arrive on time; the second-floor location in Shimbashi is easy to find using the staircase or elevator on the right side of the building frontage.
It is a workable option for solo diners, especially if you are comfortable with a tasting-format meal eaten at your own pace. The Shimbashi location and the calm, composed setting make it less intimidating for solo visitors than louder or more theatrical dining rooms. For solo dining with a counter format and more active engagement, Harutaka in Tokyo offers a sushi counter experience that many solo diners find more sociable. TOKi is the better solo choice if you want to focus on a creative tasting menu rather than interact with a counter kitchen.
Booking difficulty is rated easy, which means you are unlikely to need weeks of lead time the way you would for RyuGin or Sézanne. That said, if you are visiting Tokyo on fixed dates and have a specific evening in mind, booking two to three weeks out is a reasonable precaution. For weekday dinners, particularly in Shimbashi's business-district context, availability tends to be more flexible than at weekends.
No specific dietary restriction policy is available in the venue data. Given that the menu is a composed tasting format with a conceptual through-line connecting Nara produce and Spanish technique, significant modifications may affect the integrity of the meal. Contact the venue directly before booking if you have serious dietary requirements. The website and phone number are not currently listed in Pearl's data, so the most reliable contact route is through your hotel concierge or the reservation platform you use to book.
No group-specific seating or capacity data is available. The second-floor setting and tasting-format menu suggest this is better suited to small parties of two to four than to large groups. If you are organising a group of six or more, contact the venue in advance to confirm whether a private arrangement is possible. For larger celebrations in Tokyo's creative dining tier, checking availability at L'Effervescence or HOMMAGE is worth doing in parallel, as both operate at the ¥¥¥¥ tier with potentially more flexible private dining infrastructure.
Specific dishes are not available in Pearl's current data for TOKi, and the menu rotates with the seasons and Nara's produce calendar, so any specific recommendation would be out of date quickly. The leading approach is to follow the full menu as the kitchen offers it , the accordion structure is designed as a unified experience, not a list of individual choices. If there is a course built around a short-season Nara ingredient on the night you visit, ask the floor which dish is most specific to that week's produce. That is the course most worth your attention, and it is also the one most likely to differ from what you would find on a return visit. For broader context on how Spanish contemporary technique works with Japanese seasonal produce, akordu in Nara is the parent restaurant and the original expression of the concept.
| Venue | Cuisine | Price | Booking Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|
| TOKi | ¥¥¥ · Contemporary, Spanish Contemporary | Easy | |
| Harutaka | Sushi | ¥¥¥¥ | Unknown |
| RyuGin | Kaiseki, Japanese | ¥¥¥¥ | Unknown |
| L'Effervescence | French | ¥¥¥¥ | Unknown |
| HOMMAGE | Innovtive French, French | ¥¥¥¥ | Unknown |
| Florilège | French | ¥¥¥ | Unknown |
What to weigh when choosing between TOKi and alternatives.
TOKi is supervised by akordu, a Nara restaurant known for reading Japanese ingredients through a modern Spanish framework, so the menu skews creative and conceptual rather than comfort-driven. The space sits on the second floor of the SMBC Shimbashi Building inside a Nara Prefecture showcase, which shapes the setting as much as the food. Poetic dish names rotate with the season, so the menu is not fixed. Come expecting a tasting format built around discovery, not a familiar Spanish or Japanese menu.
TOKi is a reasonable solo choice given its counter-adjacent Shimbashi setting and tasting-menu format, which removes the friction of ordering decisions. The creative Spanish-contemporary approach from akordu suits solitary attention rather than group conversation. That said, confirm seat availability for solo bookings directly with the venue, as second-floor tasting rooms in Tokyo sometimes hold counter seats for single diners on specific sittings.
Book at least two to three weeks in advance, more if you are visiting during peak seasons when Nara's seasonal produce drives menu changes and demand rises. TOKi's connection to akordu gives it a defined following among diners already tracking the Nara-Spain culinary link, so availability is not as open as a standard Shimbashi restaurant. Check the venue directly for current booking windows.
The menu draws heavily on Nara Prefecture's seasonal produce and is built around a creative, composed format, which means substitutions may be limited without advance notice. Contact TOKi directly before booking if you have serious dietary restrictions, particularly around proteins or allergens common in Japanese and Spanish cooking. Notifying the kitchen at reservation stage gives the best chance of accommodation.
TOKi is located on a second-floor venue within a building showroom, which suggests a compact dining room rather than a large-group space. Parties of two to four will find the tasting format fits naturally; larger groups should contact the venue to confirm capacity before booking. The Nara Prefecture showcase context means the space is curated, not designed for corporate-scale dinners.
TOKi operates a tasting menu format with poetic dish names that change with the season, so there is no fixed a la carte list to navigate. The kitchen is supervised by akordu and builds around Nara Prefecture ingredients filtered through modern Spanish technique, which means the menu does the deciding for you. Trust the full progression rather than asking for a shorter version; the seasonal arc is where the concept is clearest.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
