In Tokyo, Skipping the Hot and New for Enduring Haunts

Using a guidebook published more than 20 years ago, a writer searches out the bars and restaurants that express the citys traditional eating and drinking culture.

Upon landing in Tokyo in December, three years since my last visit, I thought about where I should first eat and drink in this vast, wondrous city. The answer was obvious: Iseto, an ancient sake-drinking den operating in the same wooden house since 1948.

I strolled down a narrow alleyway in the Kagurazaka neighborhood, slid open a door and was greeted by the owner, who asked me to wait while he cleared a spot at the bar. Four lone drinkers sat at the counter, pensive and serene. Two couples chatted quietly on the floor in the neighboring tatami-mat room. The homey yet horrifying scent of grilling kusaya, a salt-cured fermented fish, wafted through the place. It was just as if I was setting foot in here five, 15, maybe even 50 years ago exactly as Iseto wanted it.

I found Iseto in a travel guidebook called the Tokyo Q Guide, last published in 2001. I started using the guide and first visited Iseto in 2005, when the Q Guide should already have been out of date. But over the years I have found this lovingly curated paperback guide, now 22 years old, to be remarkable because it predicted the future, identifying not the newest, coolest places but selecting what would last.