Why you should experience The Pizza Bar on 38th in Tokyo, Japan.
The Pizza Bar on 38th is an intimate Italian restaurant where Nihonbashi's mercantile refinement, omakase dining culture, international culinary prestige and appetite for exacting craftsmanship converge around eight marble-counter seats and pizza served directly from the oven.
Set high above Chuo-dori near Edo Sakura-dori and just steps from Mitsukoshi Nihombashi, the counter places the pizzaiolo, brick oven and diners within one concentrated field of view, turning stretching, topping, firing and slicing into the visual rhythm of the meal. Dough emerges blistered and deeply browned yet remarkably light beneath its toppings, with a moist interior and crisp outer structure creating enough delicacy for successive slices to develop. Seasonal pizzas supply the payoff as Italian foundations meet ingredients drawn from across Japan, allowing dairy richness, tomato acidity, vegetables, seafood and aromatic garnishes to shift naturally through the omakase experience. The result is a Nihonbashi restaurant where the intimacy of Japanese counter dining gives Italian pizza a precise new format, concentrating craft, heat and immediate service into eight seats.
What you should know about The Pizza Bar on 38th.
The Pizza Bar on 38th is best known for Executive Chef Daniele Cason's development of an eight-seat pizza counter at Mandarin Oriental, Tokyo, translating the intimacy and sequence of sushi and kaiseki into an Italian format that later evolved into a dedicated pizza omakase in June 2023. Rome-born Cason began cooking professionally in 2003, trained at Heinz Beck's three-MICHELIN-starred La Pergola and worked across Italy, England, Egypt and Thailand before joining Mandarin Oriental, Tokyo as Executive Sous Chef in 2013 and becoming Executive Chef in 2016. Cason engineered the restaurant's dough around organic Italian flour, one gram of yeast, 80% hydration and a 48-hour fermentation, establishing the technical foundation for a crust designed around exceptional lightness while pizzas are divided into eight slices so the entire counter advances through the sequence simultaneously. 50 Top Pizza ranked the restaurant first in Asia-Pacific in 2023, 2024 and 2025, third worldwide in 2024 and second worldwide in 2025 before placing it second in Asia-Pacific in 2026, while Gambero Rosso awarded it Three Slices in its 2024 and 2025 Top Italian Restaurants selections.
The 48-hour dough establishes the meal's physical foundation through high hydration and restrained yeast, producing an airy internal structure whose moisture and tenderness sit beneath a thin, charred exterior. Bufala exposes that balance with buffalo mozzarella, tomato and basil, allowing creamy dairy, bright acidity and aromatic freshness to register against the fermented crust. Seasonal compositions expand the same foundation through ingredients sourced across Japan from Hokkaido to Okinawa, giving the progression changing expressions of sweetness, salinity, richness and freshness as pizzas arrive directly from the brick oven. Cason's omakase format turns pizza into a paced counter experience, using fermentation, immediate slicing and successive compositions to preserve appetite while revealing how dramatically one dough can change through temperature, topping and season.
How to fold The Pizza Bar on 38th into your trip.
The Pizza Bar on 38th works as the culinary anchor for a Nihonbashi route connecting Edo commerce, modern Japanese department-store culture and the financial institutions that shaped the district's national importance.
Begin at Nihonbashi, the bridge designated in 1603 as the starting point of the Tokugawa shogunate's five major highways, making distances measured from this commercial center fundamental to the geography of Edo and the expanding national road network. Continue to Mitsukoshi Nihombashi, whose lineage reaches to the Echigoya kimono shop founded by Mitsui Takatoshi in 1673 before the business pioneered fixed-price cash sales and developed into one of Japan's defining modern department stores. Conclude at Currency Museum, where the collection developed from numismatist Keibun Senpeikan's holdings and traces Japanese money through ancient coinage, Tokugawa gold and silver systems, early banknotes and the monetary changes accompanying the modern state. The progression moves from the geographic center of Tokugawa commerce through Mitsui's retail innovation into the evolution of Japanese money before The Pizza Bar on 38th returns Nihonbashi to contemporary craftsmanship through Cason's fermentation, brick-oven heat and eight-seat omakase.
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