10 best shops to buy Japanese ingredients and condiments in Tokyo

One of the building blocks in Japanese cuisine is dashi; it's the foundation of so many dishes from oden and miso soup to ramen and tamagoyaki. This well-stocked specialist store in Azabudai Hills carries an extensive variety of premium, additive-free ingredients to make your own dashi. There are convenient pre-mix dashi packets as well as an assortment of ingredients including dried fish and kelp, the two key components in making dashi.

The options here can be overwhelming. Even the pre-mix dashi packs come in an array of styles, from the classic dashi mix with dried bonito, anchovies, grilled and dried flying fish, sweet kelp and koshin shiitake mushrooms, to the popular Kyoto dashi that has just three ingredients: dried tuna, rishiri kelp and shiitake mushrooms. The shop often gives out dashi broth samples to try, which hopefully will help you make your selection. 

For seasoned cooks, you’ll love the eye-opening counter where you’ll find 36 types of dashi ingredients on display, including bonito flakes plus an assortment of dried fish, seafood and kelp. This where you get to pick and mix ingredients to create your own dashi recipe.

Okume also stocks a good range of pantry staples sourced from all around Japan. There are artisanal soy sauce, regional miso, gourmet furikake (rice condiments) and everything else you need to make an authentic Japanese meal at home.

Sit down at any Japanese restaurant and you’ll almost always find a small wooden box or shaker filled with a fragrant spice mix. This unique mixture is called shichimi togarashi, a delicious blend of seven ingredients. Depending on the region, there are many variations of shichimi, but you can get the original Tokyo version at Yagenbori in Asakusa. This shichimi mix contains sansho (Japanese pepper) powder, dried orange peel, black sesame, hemp seeds, poppy seeds and two kinds of chilli pepper.

At Yagenbori, you can purchase different blends including the original medium-spicy mix as well as a mild and an extra spicy version. The shop even lets you create a custom blend based on your preference. You can also pick up other condiments and mix-ins for rice, including pickles, ochazuke toppings and even a special shichimi for Western food. There are two Yagenbori locations in Asakusa, but bear in mind that the metro location is closed on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

A trusted purveyor of fermented soybean paste since 1934, Sano Miso stocks an overwhelming selection of this umami-packed ingredient at its flagship store in Kameido. You’ll find 70 kinds of miso from across Japan, many of which are piled high in large barrels, with varieties often changing with the seasons.

Different regions offer unique variations of this quintessential Japanese ingredient. For instance, miso from Nagano is made from rice and is usually aged up to two years, while varieties from Aichi prefecture can be aged up to three years for a deeper, more intense, flavour.

Head to the back of the shop and you’ll find a small eat-in soup bar where you can try different miso soups along with onigiri rice balls and other side dishes. If you’ve got a sweet tooth, don’t miss the savoury yet sweet miso pudding or miso French toast topped with decadent miso caramel.

No Japanese meal is complete without a dash of soy sauce, and Shokunin knows that very well. A soy sauce purveyor in the basement supermarket of Matsuya Ginza, Shokunin offers a full range of options from salty to sweet, including styles you’ve probably never tasted before. The store stocks 120 varieties of shoyu from around 60 brewers across Japan, each packaged in small 100ml bottles.

To help the uninitiated, 24 selected brews have been relabelled with helpful images of what food pairs best with it. For instance, you can find shoyu that’s perfect for sushi and gyoza to rich brews that are best tasted with steak or even ice cream. Each bottle is priced between ¥450 and ¥600, a bargain for sauce lovers. Box sets of two, three or five soy sauces make for a great gift.

That umami flavour that we all know and love in Japanese cooking? It can be traced back to dashi, the distinctive broth made from a mix of kombu and dried fermented skipjack tuna. Dashi is the foundation of Japanese cuisine, often used as the base for dishes like ramen, miso soup and even tamagoyaki (rolled omelette).

To make this staple at home, you can pick up the ingredients at Ninben Nihonbashi, a long-standing dashi dealer that specialises in dried skipjack tuna. At the shop, freshly shaved flakes can be purchased by the bag, along with seasoned bases, dashi packs and other condiments. There’s even an in-store dashi bar where you can enjoy dashi broth as well as monthly soup and rice with dried skipjack tuna flakes.

If there’s one thing visitors to Japan should take home with them, it’s got to be a pack of quality tea leaves. Nestled among the cool shops and cafés in the Kuramae neighbourhood, Nakamura Tea Life Store is the Tokyo outpost of the Nakamura Tea Farm in Shizuoka prefecture, which has been growing tea for over 100 years.

The shop’s organic tea leaves are all grown in the Shizuoka city of Fujieda and information is offered on each variety. The labels include the date the leaves were harvested, the field in which the tea was grown and the methods used when cultivating the tea.

The wide assortment includes sencha (steamed green tea), genmaicha (brown rice tea), kocha (black tea), kukicha (twig tea) and hojicha (roasted green tea) as well as matcha tea powder. The shop also carries a curated selection of brewing equipment including beautiful ceramic teapots and utensils such as teaspoons.