Café · Tokyo ·1h
Kayaba Coffee カヤバ珈琲
A 1938 kissaten in a two-storey wooden corner house on the edge of Yanaka, restored by an art collective rather than gutted. The morning set - thick-cut tamago sando, coffee - is the correct way to start a Yanaka walk, and the first-floor room with its Showa fittings is the point as much as the food.
Tip: Opens 08:00; morning set served 08:00-11:00. It is small - a group of five will queue or be split across two tables, so arrive at opening. Ten minutes from Yanaka Ginza and next door to SCAI the Bathhouse gallery.
¥1,000-1,500 pp (approx EUR 6-9) morning source ↗ Neighbourhood · Tokyo ·half day
Yanaka Ginza & Yanaka-Nezu-Sendagi 谷中銀座
The pocket of Tokyo that both the firebombing and the bubble missed. A 170-metre shopping street of croquette stands, senbei shops and a famous concentration of cats, reached down the Yuyake Dandan steps; above it the Yanaka cemetery's cherry-lined central avenue and dozens of small temples; south of it Nezu and Sendagi with old bathhouses converted into galleries and cafes. This is the walk that makes returners feel they found something.
Tip: Shops open around 10:00 and many close by 17:00-18:00; a good number close Mondays. Do it 10:00-15:00. Route: Nippori station > Yanaka cemetery > Yuyake Dandan > Yanaka Ginza > Kayaba Coffee > SCAI the Bathhouse > Nezu Shrine > Sendagi. Nearly flat, about 3 km.
Shrine · Tokyo ·45min
Nezu Shrine 根津神社
A complete 1705 Edo shrine complex that survived both the 1923 earthquake and the firebombing - the gate, hall and corridor are all original and nationally designated. Behind the main hall a tunnel of small vermilion torii climbs the slope, an Inari sub-shrine in miniature. It sits in the middle of the Yanaka-Nezu-Sendagi walk, so it costs nothing to add.
Tip: The famous azalea festival is early-to-mid April - we miss it, and the slope will be bare. Grounds 06:00-17:00. 7 min from Nezu station (Chiyoda line) or 15 min walk from Yanaka Ginza.
Shop · Tokyo ·2-3h
Jimbocho Book Town 神保町
The largest concentration of second-hand bookshops on earth - roughly 130 of them, plus ukiyo-e print dealers, art-book specialists, curry counters and unreconstructed 1950s kissaten. Most shopfronts face north, deliberately, to keep direct sun off the stock. Ohya Shobo and Hara Shobo sell genuine Edo and Meiji woodblock prints from a few thousand yen, which is the best thing you can carry home from Tokyo.
Tip: MANY SHOPS CLOSE SUNDAYS - avoid 14 Mar. Weekday afternoons are quiet. Jimbocho is on the Hanzomon/Toei Shinjuku/Mita lines. The curry here is a genuine local speciality, not a tourist thing - Bondy and Kyoeido are the classics and both take walk-ins with a queue.
free to browse; original prints from approx ¥3,000 weekday source ↗ Food · Tokyo ·45min
Bondy, Jimbocho 欧風カレー ボンディ 神保町本店
The Jimbocho book district doubles as Tokyo's curry district, and Bondy is its standard-bearer: a sweet, deep European-style beef curry served with a boiled potato and butter, up a staircase behind a bookshop. Lunch for the second-hand-print afternoon on day 7.
Tip: Queue at 12:00–13:30; go at 11:00 opening or after 14:00. Entrance is through the Jimbocho Kosho Center building, second floor.
¥1,500–2,000 (approx EUR 8–11) lunch, off-peak source ↗ Café · Tokyo ·half day
Kiyosumi-Shirakawa coffee walk 清澄白河 コーヒー巡り
A working-class warehouse district on the Fukagawa canals that became Tokyo's roasting quarter: Arise Coffee Roasters opened first in 2013, Blue Bottle chose it for its first Japanese cafe in 2015 (a converted two-storey storehouse), and Allpress Espresso built a roastery-cafe in another. All within ten minutes of each other, with Kiyosumi Teien garden and the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo in the same walk.
Tip: Roasteries are small and open roughly 09:00-18:00 - go before 11:00 if five of you want to sit down. MOT Tokyo is CLOSED MONDAYS. This is also one of the best-value stay districts (see the stay-district entry).
¥600-1,200 per coffee; Kiyosumi Teien ¥150 morning source ↗ Neighbourhood · Tokyo ·half day
Shimokitazawa 下北沢
Nine minutes from Shibuya and a completely different city: low-rise, car-free in the centre, dense with vintage clothing, second-hand records, curry counters and live houses. Since the Odakyu line was buried underground, the old track bed has become Bonus Track and Shimokita Senrogai - a strip of small independent shops, a brewery and a bookshop-bar that is the most interesting new development in Tokyo retail in a decade.
Tip: Shops open late (12:00-13:00) and run to 20:00, so this is an afternoon/evening neighbourhood - the opposite of Yanaka. The famous Curry Festival is in October, not March. Good dinner base: Shirubee is a 5-minute walk from the station.
free to walk afternoon source ↗ Neighbourhood · Tokyo ·2-3h
Kagurazaka 神楽坂
A former geisha quarter that became Tokyo's French neighbourhood, because the Institut francais and the Lycee both landed here. The main slope is unremarkable; the reason to come is the stone-paved alleys running off it - Hyogo-yokocho, Kakurenbo-yokocho - where black wooden fences hide ryotei, and the density of good bakeries, bistros and small kaiseki is unusually high for Tokyo. Bishamonten Zenkoku-ji anchors the middle.
Tip: Walk the alleys WEST of the main slope, not the slope itself. The main street is pedestrianised on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Almost everything worth eating needs a reservation - have the apartment host or a Japanese-speaking friend call. Iidabashi or Kagurazaka station.
free to walk; dinner ¥4,000-10,000 pp evening source ↗