In Tokyo for the art fair and wondering what else you shouldn’t miss around town? BLOUIN ARTINFO Japan offers a (very) shortlist of some of the best restaurants, bars, art spaces and boutiques in the city.
WHEN: March 7—9
WHERE: Tokyo International Forum
Under the direction of Takahiro Kaneshima, Art Fair Tokyo has been acquiring a slightly stronger East Asian and Southeast Asian focus, with dealers from Hong Kong, Taipei, Manila, and Jakarta making up some of the 150 exhibiting galleries this year that offer everything from early 20th Century modern Japanese painting to ceramics and contemporary art.
The official partner hotel of this year’s Art Fair Tokyo, the Palace Hotel opened in May 2012 on a historic site in the prestigious Marunouchi business district (a mere twelve minute stroll from the fair venue), offering unobstructed views of the Imperial Palace and its lush grounds from each of its 290 immaculately appointed rooms and suites — stellar credentials that made it the first Japanese property to win a Design Award from Travel + Leisure magazine. What really catapults the Palace into a different league, however, is its varied and tasteful art collection — to date, the hotel has invested US$1 million building up a collection of some 1,000 pieces, curated by the Tokyo-based Art Front Gallery, including a stunning, austerely beautiful white panel by Shinji Ohmaki that hangs gracefully above the reception counter.
1-1-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-0005 Japan. +81-3-3211-5211
A perennial favorite for Tokyo visitors seeking out a pared-down, Japanese modern boutique hotel, the Claska also has a lively side program of music performances, morning yoga and breakfast sessions on its rooftop terrace, Japanese ceramics and craft showcases, and design exhibitions. The 20 carefully tended rooms are produced by designers like Intentionallies, Torafu, and Kaname Okajima, furnished with a carefully judged mix of antiques and both traditional tatami mats and sleek Japanese modern furniture that offer visiting design, fashion, and art crowds a seductive taste of contemporary Tokyo sensibilities. Make sure to drop by the in-house DO gallery and shop, which stocks an eclectic selection of artisanal sake and wine glasses, folk crafts, ceramics, and coolly minimal interior pieces. Although the location is slightly out of the way in a largely residential quarter of Meguro, you can also take a little excursion to the furniture and design boutiques that line the nearby Meguro Dori.
1-3-18 Chuo-cho, Meguro-ku. +81-3-3719-8121
Higashi-yama quietly took up residence at the base of a gently sloping hill nestled within a quiet quarter near Nakameguro station 15 years ago this month, long before the neighborhood became popular with hipsters, designers, and fashion people. Conceptualized by renowned designer Shinichiro Ogata, who is also known for his ceramics and “Wasara” series of tableware made from Japanese paper, the restaurant balances warm wood notes with sleek glass, bare concrete and hefty travertine — the perfect backdrop to the kitchen’s spare, simple but confident flavors that channel the best of Japanese cooking, all using a rotating selection of regional produce from Japan’s 47 prefectures under its “Food Nippon” project.
After dinner, adjourn downstairs to the dusky basement lounge for some single-malt Japanese whiskey, hand-dripped coffee and house-made confectionery in casually louche surrounds that epitomize the discretion, intimacy, and warmth of Tokyo’s best dining experiences.
1-21-25 Higashiyama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-0043. +81-3-5720-1300
Nestled down an unassuming backstreet in Aoyama, L’As is a single-roomed open-plan French restaurant run by owner-chef Daisuke Kaneko, where the immaculately appointed island kitchen directly adjoins the cozy 30-seater dining room. In the best Japanese omakase spirit of delegating all decisions and judgments of taste to the chef, only a single degustation menu (at an astonishing ¥5,250) is available at both lunch and dinner. On a recent mid-February evening, highlights included delicate beef filet baked in a salt crust with eringi mushrooms, lightly seared Japanese sawara mackerel with a red wine and oyster reduction, and the restaurant’s signature caramelized foie gras “crispy sandwich” (modeled after an ice cream wafer sandwich). Just in front of L’As is sister establishment Cork, a starkly minimal wine tasting bar that also offers platters of tasty accompaniments set underneath dramatic pendulous lamps, gracefully spotlighting the subtle hues of the sommelier’s selections.
1F Minami Aoyama Kotori Bldg., 4-16-3 Minami Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0062. Reservations: +81-80-3310-4058
Opened by Japanese contemporary art impresario Takashi Murakami last November in the otaku-themed Nakano Broadway shopping mall in western Tokyo, Bar Zingaro is produced by Fuglen, an Oslo café that itself opened its first overseas branch in the casually chic Tomigaya neighborhood in May 2012. Coffee, cocktails, and light bar snacks are served in a sparely stylish space adorned with vintage Norwegian furniture and Murakami’s own prints on the walls. After your afternoon cuppa, don’t miss Murakami’s mini-empire of four micro-sized art galleries located in the same complex that showcase works by young Japanese artists and potters, or the plethora of secondhand dealers in cult manga, anime figurines, and other otaku paraphernalia — a heady jostle of pop culture that feels more like Mongkok than Tokyo.
Second floor of Nakano Broadway, 5-52-15 Nakano, Nakano-ku, Tokyo. +81-3-5942-8382.
Started in 2003 as a side project by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Klein Dytham architecture (click here for a recent interview with Klein), this basement concrete bunker-like space in Roppongi is the birthplace of the now world-renowned Pecha Kucha Night, an event where creative innovators in various fields can share their work in a low-key, lounge-like setting that is now being replicated in 700 cities around the world. The founders see SuperDeluxe as equal parts “bar, gallery, kitchen, jazz club, cinema, library and school,” and it also brews its own beer, Tokyo Ale. Executive producer Mike Kubek keeps the nightly program varied and star-studded, with regular appearances by top Japanese and foreign musicians, dancers, and other performers that skew towards the subculture/underground.
B1F 3-1-25 Nishi Azabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0031. +81-3-5412-0515
Located on the sprawling 1320 sqm second floor of a printing and binding factory in Shinonome, near the Tokyo Bay area, TOLOT/heuristic is a contemporary art space opened in March 2013 composed of eight minimal white cubes, two of which are permanently occupied by Yuka Tsuruno and G/P+g3 Gallery. The other cubes host rotating curated shows put together by some of Tokyo’s other top galleries, and occasionally form the backdrop for other events, such as performances by rising young Japanese art stars Ei Arakawa and Shimon Minamikawa. The weekend of this year’s art fair coincides with an opening for Candida Hofer’s first Japan solo show at Yuka Tsuruno.
2-9-13 Shinonome, Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0062.
Snugly secluded on a Harajuku backstreet, this two-storey venue combines a satellite branch of the Yoyogi Park-side Little Nap Coffee Stand (try the delicious house-made organic lemonade) with a bookstore-cum-boutique that stocks Tokyo-based photography magazine IMA, fashion rag Libertin Dune, books by top Japanese photographers Taiji Matsue, Takuma Nakahira, Lieko Shiga and Taisuke Koyama, and crafts and accessories by Postalco and Syuro. The second floor houses a capacious (by Tokyo standards) event space for concerts, live performances, and screenings. In a neighborhood that skews towards schizophrenically towards both high-end street apparel and throwaway teen fashion, Vacant manages to attract an even mix of music heads, art fans, and fashion kids with an eclectic program that ranges from photography book launches and talks by New York lensman Lucas Blalock, poppy electronica by Shuta Hasunuma, and screenings of Mike Mills’ recent documentary on depression in Japan, “Does Your Soul Have a Cold?”
3-20-13 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo. +81-3-6459-2962.
Designed by top designer Masamichi Katayama of Japanese firm Wonderwall, Intersect by Lexus is not a typical car showroom, but rather a “luxury brand experience space” that seeks to become a “comfortable and inspiring space for interaction among people and between people and cars,” according to Lexus International’s executive vice president Mark Templin. Having opened last summer on a prime spot on the upper end of Omotesando within spitting distance of the Comme des Garcons, Iseey Miyake, and Yohji Yamamoto flagships, Intersect houses a café on the first floor featuring specialty coffee brands from around the world, and the “Garage” space devoted to showcasing exhibitions and other rotating cultural events. The second floor houses a section called Crafted for Lexus — a curated boutique offering select items that harmonize with the overall Lexus brand, including artisanal Italian leather bags and coffee cups with volcanic ash glazes — as well as a library lounge that will serve contemporary cuisine with a distinct Tokyo flavor.
www.lexus-int.com/intersect/tokyo
4-21-26 Minami Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0062. +81-3-6447-1540.
Decked out to resemble something of a ramshackle wooden clapboard house that has been sitting in a quiet northern corner of Harajuku since March 2012, this rugged boutique is the Tokyo outpost of a store that hails from the scenic coastal town of Kojima, Okayama prefecture, known throughout Japan for its high-quality homespun Japanese denim production (produced using its large number of vintage denim looms imported directly from the US). Here, you’ll find a range of beautifully textured raw denim, hoodies, linen shirts, and khakis from Okayama stalwarts Omnigod and Spellbound, artisanal jams made using local Okayama fruit from Alimna, organic veggies from Wacca Farm, and books from the boutique publisher and distributor 451 Books.
2-27-6 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 155-0001. +81-3-6863-7500.
