The 11 biggest Japanese trends in Tokyo in 2020

There’s a convivial feel to these food halls, which are popping up everywhere, from old banks to train stations. Filled with an array of small venues, they’ll spoil you for choice in drinking and dining options. Choose to eat from just one place, or do a hashigo and swap between several – perfect for chronic FOMO sufferers.

In Hiroo, there’s Eat Play Works, a complex of 17 restaurants spread over two floors, covering Mexican to Okinawan cuisine. In Nihonbashi, Commissary offers pizza, tacos, craft beer and more in a Brooklyn-inspired diner. Or go back to the future at the glitzy Toranomon Yokocho, featuring Tokyo’s first gin distillery and offshoots of Michelin-starred restaurants. At Harajuku’s new Jingumae Comichi, you’ll find 18 different bars and restaurants tucked into a two-floor food hall designed to feel like a mini neighbourhood.

Although Japan may be a little late to the craft beer party, it’s making up for lost time with an exciting array of locally inspired brews. You’ll find classic European styles of beer made with distinctly Japanese flavour profiles like Rokko Beer's Akinashi Weiss, which uses three different Japanese nashi pear varieties, and Loco Beer’s cherry blossom-infused Sakura Gose. Or go for something more experimental like Yona Yona’s Yuzu x Arashio salt and yuzu-flavoured beer, or Nishijin Ale Project’s Kyoto Nakagawa Manma, infused with roasted tea leaves.

Walking through the construction mayhem in Shibuya for the last few years had us a little nervous about the outcome. Thankfully, the area hasn’t lost its rough-and-tumble charm – but it has gained some sophisticated new architecture and a dazzling array of shops and food.

There’s the stylish new Miyashita Park complex, a shopping mall filled with luxury stores, restaurants and cafés, with a popular neighbourhood park on the roof and a hotel beside it. With Harajuku is home to Japan’s first city-centre Ikea and a host of other shops. Jingumae Comichi is a new dining complex with 18 venues serving everything from ramen to sustainable seafood and craft tea.

As you wander through the neighbourhood’s new nooks and crannies, keep a lookout for these eye-catching public toilets designed by famous architects, cheeky structures that go far beyond purely functional. Once regarded as the centre for youth culture, Shibuya is growing up. 

The former business centre and Wall Street of Japan is reinventing itself with a slew of cool, independent restaurants and bars. In early 2020, a renovated bank building from the 1920s reopened its doors as the stylish K5 hotel; in August, five more venues opened in Kabutocho, including a hundred-year-old eel restaurant that had transformed into a craft beer bar.

In October, Kabutocho was declared the coolest neighbourhood in Tokyo, and the month before that, Commissary dining hall opened in Nihonbashi Honcho. We have a feeling this is just the beginning for a neighbourhood that’s always been a vibrant mix of the traditional and the modern.

We love Japanese architecture, from its bold, clean lines to its rustic, simple aesthetic – and something we’re following especially closely this year are all the restorations of traditional Tokyo buildings.

In Bunkyo ward, 88-year-old sento Koganeyu reopened in August after a crowdfunded renovation and now features a craft beer bar replete with a DJ booth. In Minato ward, a historical kenban (geisha assignation office) reopened as a cultural centre after two years of renovations at the expert hand of architect Shigeru Aoki.

In Nihonbashi, a 1920s bank is now home to a tea-inspired cocktail bar, a modern Japanese restaurant and 20 stylish hotel rooms featuring shibori-dyed bed nets draped over polished concrete floors.

Part of Tokyo’s charm is its tiny restaurants, underground bars and labyrinthine alleyways, but this year, we’ve seen a number of new venues with a focus on the open-air – well-timed, given how the year unfolded.

There’s the indoor-outdoor shopping centre Miyashita Park, where you can have a picnic on the expansive rooftop park. At Shimokitazawa’s Bonus Track, an open-air courtyard connects small shops, creating a laid-back village feel. And at Jinnan House in Jingumae, an inviting front yard is a great spot to spend an afternoon with a cup of tea or beer. Here’s hoping for some more outdoor venues in 2021!

Along with brunch and nominication (that’s nomu, Japanese for drinking, fused with communication), glamping is one of our favourite portmanteaus. And 2020 was a boon to lovers of glamourous camping in Japan, with exciting additions to the already impressive lineup of glamping options.

In Tochigi prefecture, you can now stay in an igloo tent overlooking the surrounding mountains, while enjoying hearty breakfasts and lakeside barbecues. In Karuizawa, you can rent a luxurious hibernation pod in a forest and dine on aged miso hamburg steak while you keep cosy. In Mie prefecture, Hygge Circles Ugakei is a Danish-style glamp-ground currently in development, set to open in 2021 surrounded by lush forest and waterfalls in the Uga Valley. 

For decades, we’ve ogled the Japan Rail Passes available exclusively to tourists, which offer heavily discounted train trips. Finally, the time for locals to get a better deal has come, with an exciting lineup of more affordable travel options.

There’s the JR East Welcome Pass, which gives residents unlimited three-day travel through Tokyo, Nagano, Niigata and Tohoku, while the JR East Tokyo Wide Pass offers unlimited rides on shinkansen and limited-express trains in the Kanto region, including Nikko, Mt Fuji and Izu.

If you’re looking for a quick weekend getaway, the JR East weekend pass lets you travel to Nagano, Niigata, Shizuoka and more for just ¥8,800. Or stay in the city and pick up a Metro & Grutto pass, which gets you unlimited metro rides and discounts to 90 Tokyo attractions.

Although a typical Japanese diet isn’t especially meat-heavy, it’s often tricky to find meat-free options when dining out, especially since Japan’s ubiquitous dashi stock is often fish-based. Luckily, venues are responding to the increasing demand for plant-based dishes with a range of tasty new options.

There are vegan takes on traditional Japanese cuisine, like Komeda Is kissaten, Izakaya Masaka vegan izakaya and the Veggie Ramen Nana at Kagestu. You can try vegan sweets at patisserie Hal Okada Vegan Sweets Lab, and more upscale vegan cuisine at 8ablish in Aoyama. Plus, New York City’s famous vegan burger joint Superiority Burger even brought its plant-based patties to Shibuya this year.

The low- and non-alcohol (‘nolo’) trend has been picking up steam in the last few years, and for anyone wanting to balance out all those on-nomi gatherings and quarantinis, there’s an increasing range of options.

Japan’s first alcohol-free distilled liquor hit the shelves – Non-Al comes in two varieties distilled from botanicals like yuzu, sansho pepper and roasted tea. Then there’s Hirubi, a new alcohol-free craft beer.

And nolo doesn’t mean missing out on bars, either. You can enjoy a range of creative, expertly crafted low- and no-alcohol cocktails at 0% Non-Alcohol Experience bar in Roppongi, and Low-Non Bar in Nihonbashi. We love good drinks, so we’re relishing these lighter options.

This trend isn’t about something that’s on the rise, but on the way out: plastic waste. Last year, convenience stores introduced bioplastic onigiri wrappers, KitKat released recyclable origami wrappers, and MyMizu released an app that guides people to free water refill stations around the city, to combat the waste from single-use PET bottles.

This year, July 1 was a pivotal date, when the Japanese government rules came into force, ensuring shops must charge for plastic shopping bags. Almost instantly, it seemed like stores were awash with snazzy tote bags ready to replace those environmentally unfriendly white plastic ones.