Chiyoda City, Tokyo, Japan｜Ishibashi

Had a wonderful dinner experience at Ishibashi with my wife. It was our first dinner in Tokyo and one of the most memorable of our trip to Japan. Admittedly the restaurant is not very easy to make reservations for if you're not Japanese, but we were able to have our hotel concierge call for us in advance to book our dinner. Your only options for dinner are to pick whether you want lean or marbled beef. We got one of each but they're both pretty marbled as you can tell from the pictures. The meal comes with a small salad and appetizer, pickled vegetables, an egg and rice dish, and fruits. The meat is cooked slowly and a member of the restaurant staff is with you the entire meal to cook. The meat is very rich and served with a raw egg and shoyu sauce (I think). You will have more than enough food and my wife was not able to eat her portion of the egg and rice. The entire dinner was memorable. We were taken upstairs to a private dining room with tatami mat flooring, which we did not expect. The building itself is very historic and it feels like you are transported to a time in the past. The staff member that was with us for our meal, Haru, cooked our food perfectly and tried her best to answer our questions despite the language barrier. She took great care of us and made our experience extra special! She even wrote us a kind note before we left. Thank you so much!

One Michelin star sukiyaki in Tokyo. To me what differentiate them from other fancy sukiyaki restaurants is size and quality of the wagyu. The beef is so beautiful and photogenic!! The staff will take care every step of preparing and serving which it’s much less fun than usual sukiyaki meal LOL. At the end they will serve the rice cooked with egg that my stomach can’t deal with that big portion of carb.

Unique experience from a 1879 restaurant, great food and service.