The best of Tokyo in 2016

Along with A Happy Pancake and Flipper’s, Osaka import Gram is one of the main culprits behind Tokyo’s ongoing ‘fluffy pancake’ boom. Having first landed in Jiyugaoka in April – when the capital’s sweets lovers went bonkers and queued outside for hours – the café now also operates branches in Harajuku and Kichijoji. Their made-to-order, almost impossibly airy ‘premium pancakes’ are only served to 20 diners during each time slot – at 11am, 3pm and 6pm every day. If you’re eager to get a taste of the melt-in-your-mouth delicacy, best pick out a good book or charge up your phone before braving the line, as you’re sure to be waiting for quite a while. Other noteworthy offerings include the Jiyugaoka-only Baked Apple and Black Tea Cream and the pleasantly spicy Chilli Bean.

Tokyoites’ love for everything New York shows no signs of cooling down – on the contrary, restaurants, cafés and shops from the Big Apple only seem to have intensified their efforts of conquering the Eastern Capital over the past year. The most obvious representative of this hard-charging bunch is Danny Meyer’s burger empire, which first spread its tentacles to Tokyo in late 2015. But the Shake Shack boom only took off for real over the past 12 months, when new outposts popped up in Ebisu and Marunouchi. The latter, a spacious set-up inside Tokyo International Forum, is particularly apt for exploring the oh-so-satisfying lineup of burgers, fries, hot dogs and the frozen custard desserts known as ‘concretes’ – one meal there and you’ll be broadcasting the Shack’s virtues to anyone that will listen.

Alright, when are these New Yorkers going to leave us alone? Having run his Café Habana for over 15 years in Lower Manhattan, Sean Meeman saw 2016 roll around and thought it was time to see how Tokyoites respond to Cubano sandwiches and grilled corn. The answer: we’re loving it. Meeman’s Shibuya venture started business in May and quickly attracted a loyal following with the pair of signature dishes mentioned above, plus Japan originals like a teriyaki chicken sandwich and grilled garlic tuna with rice and beans. Although the Cuban fare is very good throughout, nothing has been able to overtake Habana’s exquisite corn cob, served with mayo, cojita (a Mexican cheese similar to parmesan) and chilli powder with a spritz of lime – you won’t find anything like it elsewhere in Tokyo.

A mixture of shochu, club soda and lemon juice, the humble lemon sour (the Japanese kind, not the cocktail base) isn’t the sort of drink one would think merits a specialist bar. One would change one’s mind, however, after a visit to the Open Book, which opened on Shinjuku’s Golden Gai this spring. Mr Tanaka, the bartender, uses a double-chamber Randall filter to bring out the zesty best of the lemons while mixing them with power-packed shochu and homemade lemon syrup, resulting in a harmony of sweetness, sourness and crispness. If we had to pick one drink to start the new year with, this one would be a, well, strong candidate.

Who says an old dog can’t learn new tricks? In business since 1804, Matsuzaki Senbei is one of Tokyo’s most venerable senbei (rice cracker) purveyors. Their main store in Ginza obviously still caters to all your cracker-related needs, but the Matsuzakis have also started taking steps into the café business. Quietly opened along the charmingly old-school Shoinjinja-dori shopping arcade deep in Setagaya in April, their senbei restaurant and tea house serves both savoury and sweet delights.

When visiting in the daytime, don’t miss out on their organic lunch plate: curated by cooking expert Haruyo Inagaki, this colourful mixture is available to only 15 eager eaters every day and comes replete with fresh goodness that’s sure to fill you up – and boost your Instagram kudos.

At the shop, which is well on the way to becoming the area’s number two attraction after the eponymous Shoin Shrine, you’ll want to try the Shamido Kawara Senbei. This traditional sweet cracker can be ordered for dessert or as an afternoon snack. The beans for the excellent hand drip coffee come courtesy of Hayama-based speciality dealers The Five Beans.

And as its ’hood is popular with families, the shop is very kid-friendly – think spacious bathrooms and slopes for strollers instead of stairs. You can even bring your young ’uns to take part in a Kawara Senbei painting workshop – and reward them with some green tea kakigori afterwards.

Having made their name as a pop-up operation on the club and music festival circuit, the folks behind this quirkiest of curry shops set up their first permanent outpost in Koenji in March, only to see the building condemned and torn down within months. Not to be deterred, the spice squad swiftly secured an alternative location and were back in business by September.

Run by a fellow hugely obsessed with India despite never actually having visited the country, Negura is a result of the quixotic owner having let his imagination run wild. The menu features south Indian-style concoctions topped with very Japanese ingredients like asari clams and whitebait, plus original chai drinks – and there are heaps of psychedelia-tinged paraphernalia plastered all over the walls.

This isn’t the place for authentic Indian grub, but for the brave it is a curry mash-up trip to remember. Negura already draws in daily queues and is often forced to close early after selling out of the day’s batch.

A now-overflowing supply of ‘third wave’ coffee shops is spoiling Tokyo’s caffeine addicts, but green tea, Japan’s native pick-me-up, appears to have been left by the wayside. The list of matcha-flavoured snacks may be getting longer by the day, but no one is talking about a tea revolution – yet. Kichijoji’s Uni Stand café is here to provide the spark, offering matcha beverages made by the ultimate cha-rista (tea barista).

When Uni Stand’s owner began exploring the city’s coffee landscape with the aim of becoming a barista, he noticed that coffee beans were in the process of crowding out green leaves. To set things right, he abandoned his initial plans and opened a green tea café in spring 2016, even hosting workshops to revive the endangered art of verdant brews.

Though Uni Stand also serves coffee – got to be realistic, right? – we suggest you try out the Uji Matcha Au Lait, made by the master himself. Since no additional sugar goes in the drink, you can taste the flavourful bitterness of the matcha, perfectly complemented by the creamy milk. Serious tea aficionados will want to go for the Single Origin, which features a different kind of leaf every month.

For some unknown and surely mysterious reason, Tokyo has been gripped by a kind of herb-induced madness. And no, we’re not talking about that herb: the plant in question is coriander, also known as cilantro and pak chi. Restaurants focused on southeast Asian food have started to incorporate the bright green shrub into an ever-increasing selection of dishes, while some maniacs have gone as far as to establish eateries dedicated entirely to coriander. Pak-chee Village, opened along Shinjuku’s Yasukuni-dori in July, is one of these quirky specialists. Their wonderful but slightly terrifying assortment of herby dishes is headed by a massive coriander salad (¥1,490) seasoned with fresh onion dressing – one for the dedicated pak chi enthusiast – while you’ll also find creations like coriander potato salad, coriander lassi and gyoza with coriander and shrimp on the menu.

2016 was the year of the ‘bean to bar’ chocolate trend in Tokyo, with artisanal choc-makers popping up like mushrooms after the rain. Standing out among the barrage of newcomers is Dandelion Chocolate, an import from San Francisco that’s found a home in Kuramae, a once gritty area currently transforming into a hotbed of hip ‘made in Tokyo’ stores, trendy eateries and specialist coffee shops.

At Dandelion, where you can buy treats from cookies to hot chocolate, the chocolate is made only with cacao and cane sugar. You can take a factory tour or participate in a workshop that gives you a behind-the-scenes look at the entire process, including selecting the right beans, roasting them, removing their skins, grinding them into cacao nibs, combining them with sugar, and tempering the finished bars so they don’t melt too easily. And don’t worry – there are plenty of chocolate tasting opportunities at every step of the way.