TOKYO 23
Osakaya
A reference photograph conveying the mood of this area or theme. It does not show this venue. Fukagawa ninjou street.jpg · Kentin · CC BY-SA 3.0
Night & Bars  ·  No. 242 Only here

Osakaya

大坂屋(門前仲町)  ·  Osakaya

Ward
Koto
Price
¥1,000–2,000
Hours
Opens 16:00 (sources give clos
Closed
Sun, Mon and holidays (some sources add Thursday)
Getting there
2 min from Monzen-nakacho Station (Tokyo Metro Tozai / Toei Oedo)
Founded
1924
Local tip
  • The stew comes by the portion, not the piece
  • No photographs inside
  • Sources disagree on the hours and closing days
See real photos

We do not republish copyrighted photographs. Use the links below to see the actual venue.

Local Knowledge

Obvious to locals, invisible to visitors

There is a simple reason guidebooks leave this out: to the people who live here it is too obvious to be worth explaining.

How to order
The stew comes by the portion, not the piece

Sit down and they will ask whether one portion of nikomi is right for you. A portion is a set of skewers, mixing three cuts — gristle, intestine and lung. This is not a place where you pick cuts one by one. On a first visit, just say yes.

Unwritten rule
No photographs inside

Photography inside is expressly forbidden — not the crescent hinoki counter, not the stew pot. Take your picture of the frontage outside and then go in. Raising a camera without knowing the rule is the mistake foreign visitors make most often here.

Heads-up
Sources disagree on the hours and closing days

Everyone agrees it opens at four; closing is variously given as seven, eight or nine, and the rest days as Sunday-Monday-holidays or Monday-Thursday-Sunday-holidays. Old listings keep circulating. Since they shut when the pot is empty, the only sure approach is to arrive early.

The backstory
The 'three great nikomi' came out of one book

It begins with Ota Kazuhiko's 1990 book, which named Ohashi, Yamariki and Kishidaya as the three. Uchida in Tateishi and this shop were added later to make five. No body certified any of it; one writer's list simply stuck.

What it is

A working-man's tavern counted among Tokyo's five great nikomi houses. It began in 1924 as a stall nearby, closed during the war, and reopened on this spot in 1947. The crescent-shaped hinoki counter was designed by the second-generation owner.

What to order

Why locals keep coming

The 'three great nikomi of Tokyo' are those named by Ota Kazuhiko in his 1990 book — Ohashi in Kita-senju, Yamariki in Morishita, Kishidaya in Tsukishima. Adding Uchida in Tateishi and this shop makes five. Osakaya is the only one to serve its stew on skewers.