Why you should experience The Apollo Ginza in Tokyo, Japan.
The Apollo Ginza is a sophisticated modern Greek restaurant where Ginza's cosmopolitan character, international dining culture, polished social character and appetite for culinary reinvention converge around Mediterranean sharing plates and wood-fired cooking.
Set along Harumi-dori near Sotobori-dori and just steps from Sukiyabashi Crossing, the elevated dining room pairs exposed concrete, marble tables and a long counter with an open-plan scale that gives communal Greek dining a distinctly contemporary Tokyo setting. Taramasalata establishes the meal through mullet roe, lemon and olive oil against warm pita before saganaki brings Kefalograviera cheese into contact with honey, oregano and lemon, moving from saline richness toward sweetness and acidity. Lamb shoulder supplies the payoff after ten hours of slow cooking and another hour in the oven, its yielding meat sharpened by tzatziki built from Greek yogurt, cucumber, garlic, olive oil and lemon. The result is a Ginza restaurant where smoke, citrus, olive oil, cultured dairy and shared plates translate Greek culinary traditions through the lighter style of contemporary Australian dining.
What you should know about The Apollo Ginza.
The Apollo Ginza is best known for opening on March 31, 2016 as the first international expansion of the Sydney restaurant created by Greek-Australian restaurateurs Jonathan Barthelmess and Sam Christie, whose original The Apollo debuted in Potts Point in 2012. Barthelmess and Christie brought the Tokyo project to the newly opened Tokyu Plaza Ginza, placing their contemporary interpretation of Greek cuisine on the complex's upper dining level as the Sydney concept entered Japan for the first time. Barthelmess developed the food around Mediterranean staples including olive oil, seafood and vegetables while incorporating wood and charcoal cooking, extending a culinary character shaped by his Greek heritage and contemporary Australian restaurant culture. The Tokyo restaurant carried signatures from Sydney including saganaki and lamb shoulder while introducing Japanese charcoal-grilled preparations, and its continuing profile earned inclusion among Tabelog Hot Restaurant 2026 selections a decade after its debut.
Saganaki provides the menu's clearest expression of contrast as firm Kefalograviera develops a browned exterior before honey, oregano and lemon move its salty depth through sweetness, herbal fragrance and bright acidity. Taramasalata changes the texture toward something softer and cooler, folding mullet roe with lemon juice, olive oil and bread before warm pita carries its concentrated salinity. Slow-cooked lamb shoulder deepens the progression through tender meat and rendered richness, with cucumber, garlic and lemon in the accompanying tzatziki restoring freshness before the next shared plate. The Apollo Ginza completes that physical style through its lemon pie, layering curd, olive-oil biscuit crumble and toasted meringue into a crisp, creamy and citrus-driven conclusion that echoes the acidity running through the savory menu.
How to fold The Apollo Ginza into your trip.
The Apollo Ginza works as the culinary payoff for a Ginza route connecting modern Japanese architecture, postwar commercial design and the performing-arts traditions that have given the district its cultural authority.
Begin at Ginza Sony Park, where the former 1966 Sony Building site has been reconceived as a vertically open urban project whose 2025 completion continued Yoshinobu Ashihara's original idea of creating public space within Ginza's dense commercial fabric. Continue to Ginza Graphic Gallery, founded by Dai Nippon Printing in 1986 as a dedicated graphic-design institution whose exhibitions have brought Japanese and international designers into sustained discussion within the district. Conclude at Kabukiza Theatre, whose institutional lineage reaches to 1889 and whose current Kengo Kuma-designed incarnation opened in 2013 with a traditional theater facade integrated into a contemporary tower complex devoted to kabuki performance. The progression moves through Ginza's architectural experimentation and graphic culture into more than a century of theatrical history before The Apollo Ginza closes the route through Barthelmess and Christie's Greek-Australian interpretation of communal dining.
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