On Sale: Shōwa Guide Tokyo

W. David Marx -

A tour through Japan’s mid-century restaurants, kissaten, bars, and hotels that managed to survive earthquakes, firebombs, and urban redevelopment (along with a few that didn’t)

Hello there. Culture: An Owner's Manual is a free newsletter. I have not added a paid tier, because I can't guarantee a regular cadence of newsletters. At the moment, I am unable to both write weekly essays and also finish my new book that is due to my editor on December 31. (And then next year, there will surely be lots of corrections and other editorial tasks...)

I did, however, work on something that is on sale at the moment (beyond my first two books Ametora and Status and Culture), and I would be grateful if you consider buying it: an independently-published guidebook to Tokyo’s mid-century establishment called Shōwa Guide Tokyo made together with Roni Xu.

You can buy a copy at www.tableofcontents.jp. It ships from Tokyo and makes a great holiday gift.

Why do a guide to Shōwa establishments? 

The best and worst thing about Tokyo is that it’s always expanding and changing. This makes exploring the city fun, but it also means that your favorite places can disappear without warning. I was obsessed with the kissaten Cafe Ace in Kanda. I went there quite a lot for breakfast. They had a huge menu of coffee options and did a great corn beef sandwich. I secretly plotted in my head all the ways to make sure Ace could be preserved even if the owners retired. And then one day this year, the owners announced they were going to close it. They did so that day. Ace was gone.

These Shōwa-era places need to be catalogued, and Shōwa Guide Tokyo is the culmination of a years-long attempt to do so. The book tries to collect the city’s most establishments dating from the Shōwa Period (1926-1989) — a formative period when Japan absorbed Western influences but hadn’t quite mastered the details. This hybridization resulted in what is now an extremely unique Japanese culture of yōshoku diners, woody kissaten cafes, nostalgic cake shops, and red brick cocktail bars. The book covers hundreds of Shōwa Period spots in Tokyo, as well as some of the best across the country from warm Kyushu to freezing Hokkaido.  

Shōwa Guide Tokyo covers more than 250 establishments, including: yōshoku restaurants, fancy Shōwa cuisine, curry joints, Italian restaurants, machi-chūka Chinese, sweets shops and bakeries, bars, kissaten coffee shops (a lot of them!), classical music kissa, Shōwa goods shops, Shōwa-vibe hotels, field trips across Japan, and even Roni's original recipe for Naporitan, an iconic Shōwa dish

Shōwa spots are critically endangered. Beyond Ace, a dozen of the best ones disappeared in the process of writing this book. Shōwa Guide Tokyo thus serves as both a practical guide to finding the best places to relive the Shōwa era but also as a record to preserve their eternal memory. This is also why I wrote Ametora as well: to chronicle the story while places are still open and people can talk. The hope is that this guide can raise awareness of these establishments’ precarity and encourage more conservation.

Shōwa Guide Tokyo was made as a passion project outside of the publishing industry. Only a limited number were printed and a good chunk already sold, so please grab a copy soon if you're interested.

  • Format: Modified B5 (238 x 182 mm) , full color, hardcover 320 pages
  • Publication Year: 2024
  • Printing: Fujiwara Printing, Japan 
  • Price: ¥12,500 plus shipping and handling

Thank you to Ian Lynam for art direction, and Craig Mod for his early review.

Available at www.tableofcontents.jp