Sukiyabashi Jiro Dropped From the Michelin Guide Tokyo

Sukiyabashi Jiro Honten, the Ginza sushi counter run by Jiro Ono, no longer appears in the MICHELIN Guide Tokyo. The 2020 selection, unveiled on 26 November 2019, excluded it together with Sushi Saito, another former three-star address, because neither restaurant still accepts general reservations.

Sukiyabashi Jiro had held three stars in every edition since the Tokyo guide launched in 2007. A Michelin spokesperson said the inspectors recognised that the restaurant “does not accept reservations from the general public, which makes it out of our scope”, in line with the guide’s stated principle that listed restaurants must be places where everybody can go to eat.

The main restaurant, opened in 1965 in a basement, seats only 10 guests at a time, which makes public bookings difficult to manage. Ono, well into his 90s, runs it with his eldest son, Yoshikazu. The counter gained wider fame after Barack Obama dined there with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2014 and called it “the best sushi I’ve ever had in my life”.

The family’s Roppongi branch, operated by Ono’s younger son, kept its two stars because it still takes reservations from the public.

Elsewhere in the Tokyo selection, Kadowaki in Minato-ku was promoted to three stars after holding two since 2009, bringing the city’s three-star count to 11. Kanda, Quintessence and Joël Robuchon have kept three stars since the first edition. Inua, the innovative restaurant led by Noma alumnus Thomas Frebel, entered directly with two stars, and Ginza Shinohara moved up from one to two.

Prisma earned two stars, the first time since the 2011 edition that an Italian restaurant in Tokyo has reached that level. In total the 2020 guide lists 464 restaurants, 226 of them with stars.