Why you should experience Oishii Food Tours in Tokyo, Japan.
Oishii Food Tours is an intimate culinary guide where Ebisu's after-dark character, hidden izakayas, regional Japanese cooking and bilingual local expertise turn dinner into a doorway to Tokyo's less obvious food culture.
Set along Ebisu's restaurant-lined streets near Komazawa-dori and just steps from Ebisu Station, the company operates from a neighborhood whose dense concentration of counter restaurants, sake bars and small drinking rooms gives its guides immediate access to the kind of independently run establishments that first inspired the business. Tokyo itineraries range from market-focused daytime outings to evening bar-hopping, with bilingual guides connecting dishes to the districts and customs surrounding them. Private Ebisu outings enter three different styles of izakaya before dessert, pairing Japanese pub cooking with beer, sake or cocktails across a three-hour experience. The result is an Ebisu food-tour company where access, local relationships and carefully sequenced tastings give travelers practical confidence to enter Tokyo's smaller restaurants long after the guide has gone home.
What you should know about Oishii Food Tours.
Oishii Food Tours is best known for beginning in 2015 after its founders joined a food tour in Ho Chi Minh City in 2014 and returned to Japan convinced that the same format could introduce international travelers to Japanese food culture. The founders had been working with expatriates in Japan when a British friend invited them on the Vietnam outing and suggested creating a Japanese version; after returning home, the idea became a joint venture and tours began the following year. Oishii incorporated on August 9, 2017 as Oishii Co., Ltd., with Meg Sakuma serving as CEO and ¥1 million in stated capital. The company built its mission around connecting people and the world through food, taking international travelers into local establishments that can be difficult to discover independently. Operations subsequently expanded beyond Tokyo into Kyoto, Osaka and Kanazawa, supported by morning, daytime and nighttime formats. Corporate work became another branch of the company through food-centered team-building events and restaurant support for businesses serving international clientele. The current Tokyo program spans Tsukiji and Ginza, Yanaka, Shibuya, Omotesando, Ebisu and other districts, with private full-day itineraries running five to eight hours and shorter outings concentrating on individual neighborhoods. TripAdvisor awarded Oishii Food Tours Travellers' Choice in 2025, and its listing currently carries more than 1,100 reviews.
An Ebisu evening moves through three contrasting izakayas, using yakitori, sashimi and Japanese pub dishes to show how a neighborhood dinner can unfold across several addresses. Beer, sake and Japanese cocktails accompany the progression, giving the guide room to explain drinking customs and pairing choices as dishes arrive. Daytime touring changes the rhythm through Tsukiji and Ginza, where a private 3.5-hour route incorporates seven to eight stops for tuna, sushi, wagyu, grilled skewers and Japanese sweets. Full-day private itineraries widen the field further by linking districts such as Tsukiji, Asakusa, Yanaka, Shibuya and Omotesando according to the traveler's preferred pace and tastes. Small groups keep the guide close enough to explain unfamiliar dishes and help diners navigate establishments where ordering conventions can otherwise feel opaque. Oishii Food Tours makes eating the mechanism for understanding Tokyo, allowing markets, counter restaurants, neighborhood streets and drinking customs to accumulate into a fuller picture of how the city feeds itself.
How to fold Oishii Food Tours into your trip.
Oishii Food Tours works as the culinary centerpiece within an Ebisu route connecting the beer that named the district, Japan's first comprehensive public photography museum and the vast redevelopment created across the former brewery grounds.
Begin at Yebisu Brewery Tokyo, where the Japan Beer Brewery Company began producing Yebisu Beer in 1890 and demand eventually prompted a dedicated freight station whose name passed first to Ebisu Station and then to the surrounding district. Continue to Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, opened in Yebisu Garden Place in 1995 as Japan's first comprehensive public museum devoted to photography and moving images, giving the former industrial district a major institution for visual culture. Conclude at Yebisu Garden Place, opened in 1994 across the former brewery property as the large urban project that reshaped the eastern side of the neighborhood after brewing operations departed. Oishii Food Tours completes the progression through the smaller restaurants beyond that grand redevelopment, using guides, shared plates and multiple izakaya doors to reveal the neighborhood culture that develops at street level.
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