Tokyo: ‘The Premier City in the World for Food’
Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 02.15.08 | 2:51 PM ET
Michelin’s first-ever guide to Tokyo gave the city’s restaurants a combined 191 stars, more than Paris (98 stars) and New York City (54 stars) have together. Sure, Tokyo also has far more restaurants (160,000) than Paris (20,000) and New York (23,000), but the news of the quality of the Japanese cuisine—Michelin released the Tokyo ratings last November—has resonated with travelers. According to the Japanese government, seven out of 10 international travelers to the country cite food as the primary reason for visiting.
Today’s Washington Post has a great look at Tokyo’s restaurant scene. “It is pride and ambition that bind us,” one chef says. “The food we serve is a reflection of how we live.”
Related on World Hum:
* Eating Japanese: The World’s ‘My Boom’ Food
* Inside Great Sushi and the World’s Biggest Fish Market
* A ‘Gastronaut’ Goes to San Sebastián
Photo by yomi955, via Flickr (Creative Commons)
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Michael Yessis is the cofounder and coeditor-in-chief of World Hum.
Jim Benning 02.15.08 | 3:55 PM ET
And what of Singapore?
John M. Edwards 02.15.08 | 7:55 PM ET
Hi Jim:
Wow! I needed a calculator to follow that one.
I can’t believe New York has 23,000 restaurants. I thought it would have more boroughs-wide.
At one of these Big Apple restaurants, which will remain nameless, number 23,000-1, I applied vigorous Pythagorean logic to the number of diners not coming in, attracted, of course, by the high markup of obvious plonk (come on, you can tell by some labels that you’re going to be overcharged for a mouthful of spuming sweettart). But it was worth it anyway, to chow down on grey spareribs, listening to the memoirs of a friendly German waiter, existentially named “Bobo” or something, with a wild shock of Siegfried hair, who regularly saw the Beatles play in the Cavern in Hamburg.
But what does this have to do with Japanese food?
JetPunk 10.20.08 | 4:25 AM ET
I lived in Tokyo for a few months and I don’t think the food was my style. I never really liked sushi and I would always leave my meals hungry, seeking the satisfaction of a candy bar.
kimmychan 11.08.08 | 12:46 PM ET
well sushi is my number one fav food so looks like i need to go to tokyo!!!!