After 7 trips to Japan’s most popular city, it was about time that I created a separate guide on my favorite ramen shops in Tokyo. After all, my original ramen guide included places in Kyoto and Osaka that I haven’t been to in over a decade, so it was due for an update dedicated to Tokyo. And if there’s one food I probably eat the most of in Tokyo, it’s ramen. There are just so many different versions of noodles and broth, and it’s the most reliable for late night food or even an early breakfast. So here are some of my favorite ramen spots to try.
Tokyo Abura Soba
If I’m honest, my favorite ramen in Tokyo may not even be considered ramen at all. Abura soba or “oil noodles,” is a brothless noodle dish, which I first had at the appropriately named Tokyo Abura Soba in Shinjuku, Tokyo after a night at the Robot Restaurant (hello perfect drunk food!). Since 2015, I’ve eaten this all 6 subsequent trips back to Tokyo, so that tells you how much I love it. It even inspired my own copycat recipe on my blog and a Sichuan-inspired recipe in my cookbook.
Watch our visit to their Kichijoji location:
Tokyo Abura Soba is a chain serving hot noodles on a rich pork sauce along with a variety of toppings (egg, pork chashu, bamboo shoots, etc.) which you stir together before adding condiments like minced onion and garlic, rice wine vinegar, and chili oil and stirring it all up again. The result is a totally customizable bowl with flavor made to your exact liking.
Probably do to my Filipino tastes, I was obsessed with the addition of vinegar, which provided the right acidity to balance out the richness of the spicy pork sauce and chashu pork slices. I recommend getting topping combo B which includes big slices of chashu pork and a soft onsen egg, which makes for a velvety sauce thanks to a slightly runny yolk.
Sushi to Ramen Uogashiya
As the name suggests, this shop serves both sushi and ramen until the late hours, both which are delicious. The sushi was actually better than a lot of the fish I had at Tsukiji Outer Market, and the ramen features a seafood broth that gets enhanced with bonito flakes served in a strainer to briefly mix the flavor into the broth. We visited the location in Shimbashi, though there is also one in Shibuya. I would definitely revisit this shop and add the raw oysters to my ramen next time as they looked really good!
Hashigo Ginza Hon-ten
This ramen-ya in Ginza specializes in tantanmen, the Japanese version of dan dan noodles with a flavorful spicy numbing peanut-infused broth and pickles. Get the version topped with deep fried pork ribs for a generous portion of well-seasoned and fried pork over the average chashu.
Menya Musashi
If chashu is your favorite part about ramen, then you should definitely try Menya Musashi, a popular shop in Tokyo that has since expanded with offshoots around the globe. At their Shinjuku location, you can expect a wait for one of their seats at a long counter, where you’ll be served a sizable bowl filled with thick chunks of flavorful marinated pork, thick chewy noodles (my fave), a perfectly cooked soft-boiled egg, and a deeply rich pork, chicken and bonito-based broth (I loved it though it may be too salty for some). The shop is so popular that much like other shops on this list, they’ve expanded to locations in LA and the US and elsewhere in Asia.
Tachihira
For a satisfying bowl of ramen any time of day, head to Tachihira in Shibuya. It’s open 24 hours and serves up a wide variety of ramen styles, including a lighter pork bone broth which we really enjoyed, plus miso, spicy miso, sesame-spiked tantanmen and even tsukemen so there’s something here for every taste. They also have loads of condiments at the table to customize your bowl, which you can watch in the video below.
Fuunji
Another of my favorite bowls from our original 2015 trip was once again not your standard ramen, but a tsukemen dip ramen from Fuunji in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo. It was recommended by Ivan Orkin of Ivan Ramen, featuring a plate of utterly perfect, chewy noodles that you dip into a bowl of thick, insanely rich and flavorful seafood-based broth that sticks to the noodles.
It’s an umami bomb unlike I’ve ever had, and the texture is incredibly satisfying. You can select the portion size of the noodles you want – we made the mistake of getting a large portion each and I struggled to finish. It’s disrespectful to leave too much food uneaten, so I recommend getting a medium portion unless you’re starving or inherently capable of eating a ton. If you still have room at the end, they have kettles of hot water that you can pour into the thick tsukemen base to turn it into more of a sipping broth.
Ichiran
If slurping your noodles with a warm, comforting broth is more of your thing, then I recommend going to Ichiran Ramen, which originated in Fukuoka and has a number of locations throughout Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, elsewhere in Japan, and even NYC. Ichiran is another vending machine operation, but they offer the unique experience of solo booth seating, as each seat at their counter has partitions on either side so you can eat your ramen in your own personal space. You hand your tickets from the vending machine through a window to the kitchen, and once you’re handed back your tonkotsu ramen, a curtain is pulled down so you don’t even need to interact with a server unless you press your attendant button. There’s even a water dispenser at your seat so you don’t have to ask someone for water! It’s also open 24 hours – in my past 2 trips to Tokyo, I went to Ichiran after nights out in Golden Gai and Shibuya for the perfect drunk food!
As for the ramen itself? You’re getting a bowl of wonderfully rich and flavorful tonkotsu ramen with a pork-based broth, customizable to your level of richness and spice (the photo at the top of this post shows a close up of my bowl of ramen). You can even customize how firm or soft you want your noodles, as well as if you’d like green, white, or no onions. This gets paired with super tender pork chashu and a gorgeous orange-hued soft boiled egg if you choose to add it. If I’m honest though, I don’t think it’s worth the crazy long wait times during the day when there’s so much ramen options, especially in Osaka which only has 1 Ichiran location. Your best bet is to go late at night when there’s little to no wait.
Afuri Ramen
Looking for something lighter than your pork fat-based tonkotsu? Then look no further than Afuri Ramen, a ramen shop that specializes in a yuzu-laced shio broth. The Japanese citrus brings a brightness to the broth that balances out the tender and smoky chashu and yet another perfectly made egg. We’ve also heard from non-meat-eating friends that their vegetarian ramen is also top notch. It’s another vending machine operation, and while we visited their original Tokyo branch in Ebisu, there are now branches across the city, throughout Japan, and even in Portland, Oregon.
This list is still a work in progress as I try to find all of my ramen pics in Tokyo, so stay tuned for updates!
In the mean time, check out my other Tokyo guides, as well as Sapporo and Niseko guides for the northern prefecture of Japan.
