A note on the words: fresh peppercorns are whole green peppercorns still on the vine, here salt-cured rather than dried — they burst under the tooth and taste nothing like the dried black pepper most kitchens keep. Ashitaba is a leafy green from the islands south of Tokyo. Prices are as of this writing (August 2026).
Tsukiji Peppers Cafe on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Drinkers, thank you for waiting. It is Hangover Meshi time.
“There is a shop in Tsukiji selling fresh peppercorns and I want to go and buy some!” — so I tagged along. “Tsukiji Peppers Cafe”. It is a cafe, but you can buy fresh peppercorns too! And looking at the menu, there is alcohol as well. Since we are here, perhaps a highball.
Tomato-sauce base pizza — 900 yen
Ashitaba-sauce base pizza — 1,000 yen
Cheese-sauce base pizza — 900 yen
Squid-ink-sauce base pizza — 1,100 yen
There are plenty of toppings, and you combine them as you like. Every pizza comes loaded with cheese and pepper. Sounds ideal alongside a highball!
This time I went for squid ink + squid (the one shown on the sample photo!).
First, the highball.
They shower this generously with pepper too.
Highball and pepper — they do go together. It tightens things up with a sharp prickle. Delicious.
And these are the fresh peppercorns. They gave us some as a snack, and one bite was a revelation. Cambodian “salt-cured fresh peppercorns”, apparently: they burst with a pop, a fresh green aroma opens up, salt lands on the tongue, and the sharp sting of pepper follows behind. Completely different from dried black pepper — that freshness and hard-edged heat are startling!
Ah — yes, these genuinely work as a drinking snack! The saltiness is judged just right.
I fully understand wanting to buy some to take home!!
Beautifully browned, and it smells wonderful.
The “pepper squid-ink pizza” with squid added as a topping. This is Tsukiji, so: seafood throughout.
The dough is made by hand in the shop and baked to order. And remarkably, this pizza is cooked with a frying pan and a blowtorch! “It bakes rather well like this!” they said. In a room this size, perhaps that is the best practice.
The bake is spot on: crisp outside, chewy inside, the ideal form. The surface is scattered with Cambodian salt-cured fresh peppercorns that pop under the tooth, so wherever you bite, you meet pepper. Rich squid ink and seafood savour underneath, the springy bounce of the squid topping, and the fresh prickle of the peppercorns — delicious!
The highball disappears rather fast!
So — in the end I bought a stock of fresh peppercorns for myself too. Fresh peppercorns are not something most of us eat often, or can easily find, and the aroma and heat are utterly unlike dried pepper — do try them once. If I am ever in Tsukiji again I shall certainly look in to restock.
Also, their morning curry is apparently famous — I want to come back for that!
May you meet something good to eat today too.
Tsukiji Peppers Cafe (cafe / Tsukiji-shijo Station, Tsukiji Station, Higashi-Ginza Station)
Tabelog lunch rating ★★★☆☆ 3.3
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
