About Japan Dining
Japan Dining is an English guide to Japan's high-end restaurants for people visiting the country. It lists 6,995 restaurants whose dinner price starts at ¥15,000 per person and answers the questions visitors ask before they go: what it costs, whether it takes online reservations, when it is closed, whether children are admitted, and how to find it.
Which restaurants are included
A restaurant is included when its dinner budget, as published by the restaurant or reported by diners, is ¥15,000 per person or more. Inns and hotels whose price includes a stay are left out of the restaurant lists, and so are places that serve food but are not restaurants: wedding halls, golf and members' clubs, cruise boats, cafés and shops.
Where the facts come from
Prices, opening hours, seats, payment methods, reservation policies and awards come from each restaurant's listing on Tabelog, Japan's largest restaurant guide, and from the restaurant's official website where it has one. They were last checked in November 2026. The descriptions on this site are written from those facts. We do not copy diners' reviews.
Courses are listed one by one, each with its own price and, where the restaurant has published them, its dishes: from the course pages the restaurant keeps on Tabelog, or from its own website when it prices its courses there. A course's price is shown as the restaurant states it, with or without tax and service charge as it says.
Photos come from each restaurant's page on Tabelog. The restaurant's own photos come first; where it has posted few photos of its dishes, or none of its dining room, photos diners posted on the same page fill the gap. The source is credited under every set of photos. Where a restaurant has an Instagram account, its posts are shown with Instagram's own embed, so they stay on Instagram under the restaurant's name.
How lists are ordered
Lists follow our own score. It starts from the restaurant's Tabelog rating, adds a little for a sustained record of The Tabelog Award and Tabelog 100 selections, and a little more when a visitor can book online in English or will find an English menu or English-speaking staff. The effect is modest: a clearly better-rated restaurant still ranks higher, but among similar restaurants the ones that are easier for visitors to book come first. “Near” lists are ordered by distance. How each restaurant is compared with the others, under “Our analysis” on its page, is set out in How we analyze restaurants.
How we judge whether a restaurant is easy to visit
Every restaurant page says how easy the restaurant is for a visitor from abroad, in one of five steps, from what the restaurant itself publishes: how it takes bookings, the languages of its menu and staff, and any notes it writes for guests from overseas.
- Easy to book from abroad: it takes bookings online in English and has a menu or staff in your language.
- Some support for visitors: one of the two, not both.
- Welcomes guests from abroad: neither, but it says it welcomes guests from overseas or uses a translation device.
- Book through a concierge: nothing is listed for visitors; a hotel concierge can book for you.
- Hard to book from abroad: it limits bookings from overseas or asks for a Japanese speaker.
“Your language” is English on the English pages, and English or Chinese, or English or Korean, on the Chinese and Korean editions. Where the restaurant has said nothing, the page says “not listed”: it means the restaurant has not said, not that it has none.
What we work out ourselves
The walking directions on a restaurant's page follow the streets from the nearest station exit, drawn from OpenStreetMap (map data © OpenStreetMap contributors). The entrance photo is the restaurant's own. Walking times in lists, nearby luxury hotels, each restaurant's price compared with others in the same city and weekly opening days are calculated from the published facts and from open data (station and landmark locations from Wikidata); walking times in lists are estimates from straight-line distance.
Awards shown are The Tabelog Award (Gold, Silver and Bronze) and selections for Tabelog's “Tabelog 100” lists.
What restaurants say on their own websites
Where a restaurant's own website names its chef, writes its name in its own way (Florilège, Sézanne), or states a Michelin Guide distinction for that restaurant, we show it in a section headed “From the restaurant's website”, with a link to the page. These are the restaurant's statements, not ours and not the Michelin Guide's: a star mentioned for a chef's earlier restaurant or for another branch is left out, and a website can be out of date. The guide itself is the authority.
Who runs this guide
Japan Dining is run by Paprika Inc. (株式会社パプリカ), a company registered in Tokyo, Japan (Corporate Number 7012401035666, National Tax Agency). Address: 3-2-5 Kichijoji-Honcho, Musashino-shi, Tokyo 180-0004, Japan. Email: [email protected], or the form below.
Corrections and removal
Restaurants change their prices, hours and rules. If something here is wrong, tell us below. We read every message. If you run a restaurant in this guide, use the page for restaurants (in Japanese and English) to correct your listing, add an English description, your chef, a booking page and photos, or ask to be removed.