Itosho

Itosho serves shojin ryori — Buddhist temple vegetarian cooking — in a tatami dining room tucked down a quiet side street in Azabu-Juban, run by a chef who spent twenty-five years training at Kakusho, a restaurant in Takayama, Hida Prefecture, that has operated since the Edo period, before he opened this small room of his own more than three decades ago. That Hida pedigree still shows up on the plate: the vegetables, and much of the seasoning, come from the mountains around Takayama rather than a Tokyo wholesale market.

The dish regulars talk about is deceptively simple: tofu and burdock root, worked and grilled until the texture and glaze read as anago (conger eel), plated beside a namasu of raw-arranged vegetables that diners toss together themselves at the table. It is a small piece of theater built entirely from plants, and it lands because the kitchen treats trompe-l'oeil as a technique rather than a gimmick — nothing here tastes like a substitute reaching for the real thing. Dinner comes in three course tiers of roughly a dozen dishes each; the top tier opens with a house aperitif and moves through soup, a mid-course serving of hand-cut soba, and a closing course of rice and broth. Lunch is a shorter, calmer eleven-dish version of the same idea. Seating is limited to a run of private and semi-private tatami rooms, so the room stays hushed even when full.

Two practical notes worth knowing before you book: Itosho takes cash only — no cards, no e-money, no QR codes — and reservations are mandatory, arranged through Ikyu, Gurunavi, or by phone, with a same-day cancellation fee the restaurant enforces strictly. There is no English menu, so a translation app or a hotel concierge call ahead will help considerably. The kitchen describes its cooking as free of animal protein, but strict vegans who care about dashi composition should confirm stock ingredients when they reserve.