The 25 Essential Seafood Dishes to Eat in Tokyo

More than 200 types of fish and other edible seafood species inhabit Tokyo Bay, and many more live in the waters off Japan. There are delicate, darting fish like isaki and sea squirts like hoya (also known as sea pineapples): things rarely seen on American menus. There’s a bewildering array of bivalves and crustaceans, including a surf clam that’s eaten in two parts, in two different ways: Its adductor muscle is used for one kind of sushi and its crisp flesh and foot for another. There are wispy ice fish that all but disappeared from waters around the Japanese capital, likely owing to land reclamation and pollution, only to make a ghostlike resurgence in recent years. A new species of starfish was even discovered last year not far from Tokyo Bay, although it doesn’t appear to be edible.

That bounty, not to mention the skill and knowledge of Japanese chefs, makes choosing Tokyo’s 25 essential seafood dishes a challenge. Up to the task were Keiji Nakazawa, a sushi master with Sushi Sho restaurants in Tokyo, Honolulu and Manhattan, who lives in New York City; Yukari Sakamoto, a Minnesota-born, Tokyo-based food writer and market guide, who’s married to a Tokyo fish buyer; Sonoko Sakai, a cookbook author who grew up in Japan and lives in Los Angeles; Nao Motohashi, one of Tokyo’s few female head chefs, who serves seasonal modern Japanese cuisine at her restaurant, Julia; Niki Nakayama, a Japanese American chef whose N/Naka restaurant in Los Angeles specializes in kaiseki, or Japanese multicourse haute cuisine; and Hisashi Udatsu, whose Udatsu Sushi in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Los Angeles brings contemporary touches to a venerable sushi tradition.

After all of our six panelists came up with their 10 nominations, we gathered on a video call to narrow the list to 25, as part of T’s ongoing T 25 series (which has also featured essential dishes from Mexico City, Paris, New York City and Italy). There was surprisingly little overlap among our panelists’ picks but also surprisingly little acrimony as we slashed 60 choices to the final selection below.

At the outset of the discussion, all the panelists agreed on one thing: “It’s difficult to make bad sushi in Tokyo,” as Nakazawa said, citing easy access to quality ingredients. But as Sakai pointed out, a fine sushi meal is about far more than the interplay between seafood and rice: A sublime experience, in the end, depends on the relationship between chef and diner. She and the others referred to the importance of “consuming hospitality” along with the meal. “You have to be relaxed to enjoy sushi,” said Sakai, which is why she favors unassuming neighborhood places (see Osushi Isobe, No. 22). The importance of that relationship is also why Nakazawa had such difficulty making his choices. “Selecting the best place in Tokyo is very difficult as you’re selecting the personality of the sushi chef,” he said.