HONMURA-AN

Seasonal Handmade Soba For Over 90 Years
[updated August 2022]

This large soba noodle restaurant in Ogikubo with 80 seats and a parking lot makes you forget you are in cramped Tokyo. Bonsai of the season are placed in the center garden to be viewed from the windows. Honmura-an is over 90 years old is the perfect place to enjoy original and flavorful soba. Their soba (from 756 yen) is handmade, with buckwheat flour ground right before cooking. The content rate of buckwheat flour is carefully adjusted according to the season and weather. They are located only 10 minutes on foot from Ogikubo Station.

On New Year’s Eve and the few days before it is customary in Japan to eat soba. They call this “toshi-koshi soba” meaning “soba to pass the year” and it became a tradition due to the belief that eating the long noodles represented long life and thus good health going into the New Year. Since Honmura-an is an old and traditional soba restaurant, it is a very popular place for toshi-koshi soba. If you are in Japan for New Year’s it is a great place to go– just be aware that this is a very popular custom and a popular place so you may have to wait for a table, but the experience will be well worth it!

ACCESS

Translation: Enju
Photography: TFF staff