Looking to stay on the cutting edge of food, drink and shopping trends in Tokyo? Sure, keeping track of all the new restaurants, bars, shops and stands opening across the city every month can feel exhausting and almost hopeless – but that's where we come in. Sparing you the trouble of wading through long lists of shiny promotional pics and hollow praise, we've again compiled a handy list of the top five spots to start business this month. Check out our editorial team's picks below, and make sure to leave a comment if you think we missed something.
Promising to put an international twist on kappo, the traditional style of fine Japanese cooking served literally 'in the kitchen', this new Tamachi joint incorporates ingredients like peanut butter, coriander, kale and avocado into classic dishes like satsuma-age (deep-fried fish cake), atsuage (deep-fried tofu) and oden. The drink selection looks just as unorthodox, with cocktails ranging from hard kale smoothies to a 'black sugar mojito' and an awamori-based bloody mary. It may be blasphemy to some, but we're already looking forward to sampling the playful-looking fusion fare.
2) Brick End
Part of the efforts to breathe new life into Ebisu's Garden Place complex, which recently celebrated its 22nd anniversary and the re-opening of the former Metropolitan Museum of Photography as the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, this new 'restaurant alley' hosts five standing-only eateries and bars. Among them are a casual izakaya run by acclaimed Ebisu restaurant Sanpi-Ryoron, an offshoot of Harajuku's The Great Burger, an Indian curry joint and even a music bar, all of which look out over the Yamanote line tracks.
Serving up super-fluffy, airy, melt-in-your-mouth soufflé fare, Flipper's is one of the main players behind the ongoing second coming of Tokyo's pancake boom. After starting out in Shimokitazawa early this summer and attracting predictably lengthy queues on a daily basis, they've now clearly adopted an expansionary policy: after Jiyugaoka, the next Flipper's is set to open on the 'pancake battleground' of Kichijoji, where rivals Gram also just established a presence.
These London-born cupcake purveyors first landed in Tokyo a year ago, and their decadent creations – which include London favourites Red Velvet, Cookie & Cream and Banoffee alongside Tokyo-only offerings like Tokyo Vanilla and Matcha – quickly proved popular among the city's ever-enthusiastic sweets-loving crowd. Set to start business inside Roppongi Hills very soon, Lola's second Tokyo outpost will apparently carry all the best-selling flavours from the Harajuku shop, plus a few new originals set to be available only here.
If you're a music enthusiast who still swears by vinyl and enjoys digging through piles of secondhand records, then this shop will feel like a small slice of heaven. The record-focused arm of the now Lawson-owned HMV empire recently expanded to Shinjuku, and stocks around 70,000 vinyl titles plus another 20,000 in CD form at its outpost inside the iconic Alta building.
Catching up? Check out the hottest openings in August here