A note on the words: charcuterie is the French counter of cured and potted meats; ajillo is the Spanish dish of something simmered in garlic and olive oil; otoshi is the small dish an izakaya brings unbidden and charges for as a seat fee; misuji is the top blade cut of beef; jidori is free-range native-breed chicken; and Ezo deer is the Hokkaido sika, served here as game. Cagliostro refers to the Miyazaki film The Castle of Cagliostro, whose spaghetti with meatballs is the dish on this menu. Prices are as of this writing (August 2026).
Table of Contents hide
Tomita Shoten on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
I want to eat something good today as well. This is Hangover Meshi.
I have found an interesting place in Suidobashi!
It goes by the name “Tomita Shoten” — Tomita Bookshop. It was made, apparently, by renovating an old bookshop. Extremely stylish.
It is a bookshop exactly as it stands, but step through the door and a long counter runs away from you. The ground floor is counter seating, the first floor tables.
Upstairs the walls are lined with all sorts of books, and it is terribly charming.
Even the menu is pasted into a picture book, so you really do feel surrounded by them.
Well now — I regret not having known until today that a place this interesting existed.
And there is one more thing about it: this is a place where you can eat the dishes that appear in books and other works. (The meat pasta from Cagliostro, for instance.)
Stylish, charming, and serving dishes you do not see elsewhere. I could not wait.
Right — let us read the picture-book menu and order what we fancy.
First, beer. Mm! Good!
Since we were certain to drink wine as well, we asked for the charcuterie platter.
White liver mousse with baguette, roast beef, ham, terrine and so on: a platter of meat snacks that go beautifully with wine.
Blue cheese with honey-steeped nuts, and a cream cheese and fig mousse. That, plus the rest of the cheese platter!
With charcuterie and cheese on the table, we were fully prepared to drink wine. A bottle of white was duly summoned.
I have not read it myself, but this is apparently a dish that appears in Haruki Murakami’s “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World”. I had simply looked at the photograph and thought the sausage looked good. And it is exactly as good as it looks.
There is a second item on the menu with the same name. Or to put it precisely,
- Ajillo of broad beans and bamboo shoots, and chorizo (990 yen)
- Ajillo of broad beans, bamboo shoots, and chorizo (1,200 yen)
— those two entries both exist.
What, we asked, is the 210-yen difference, and what is that comma doing after “broad beans”?
For the moment we ordered the 1,200-yen one. In the end we never did work out what the difference was.
And then somebody had a flash of inspiration.
“It is whether or not the baguette comes with it, surely.”
Genius. That has to be it.
Tomita Shoten takes its charcoal grilling seriously. From jidori chicken, misuji (top blade), beef chuck loin and Ezo deer, we chose the game.
One mouthful in and it is astonishingly easy to eat, while still keeping the character that game has.
Cooked slowly over charcoal, the meat is fragrant and crisp on the outside, rare and moist within.
What spreads as you chew is the savour particular to venison, never overpowering: wildness and refinement living side by side.
I had wondered whether it might be a little too gamey, or tough. Nothing of the kind.
The sauce is built on the rich side, and it went well with the bottle of red we had casually ordered a moment earlier, lifting the flavour of the meat further. Delicious!
This one too comes out of a book: a plate that appears, apparently, in Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights”.
The pork, cooked through slowly, is moist and tender, and the sweetness of the fat and the depth of the meat spread the longer you chew.
It takes the savour of the meat squarely, and it sits beautifully with wine.
I have not read this one either, but if food this good comes out of it, I may have developed an interest.
And last, this. The one I absolutely had to order: the Cagliostro spaghetti with meat — balllllls!
The dish Lupin and Jigen fight over as they eat, of course.
You do not often see meatballs in Japan — or rather, the only ones I can call to mind are the bento-sized ones from Ishii. (Although, come to think of it, there was a meatball shop in the basement in Hibiya.) The real thing is big!
Piled up in that magnificently rough way, they lift your spirits from the moment you see them.
The pasta is on the thin side and easy to eat, and tangled with meatballs carrying that solid meaty savour it becomes something simple yet properly filling.
There is plenty of it, too — about right for four of us to share.
Mm, thoroughly satisfied!
So: I went to “Tomita Shoten”, which looked interesting from the outside, and it was every bit as much fun as I had imagined.
For all the playfulness of the concept, the cooking itself leaves you properly satisfied — which makes it well suited to a stylish date, or a gathering with friends who matter to you.
I am glad to have found a good place. I shall bring somebody along next time.
Tomita Shoten (bistro / Suidobashi Station, Korakuen Station, Kudanshita Station)
Tabelog dinner rating ★★★☆☆ 3.7
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
