2026 Tokyo Time Machine Exploring Old School Monzen Nakacho

Michelle was such a great tour guide! Very knowledgeable and engaging. I learned so much on this tour and loved trying some foods I’ve never tried before. Highly recommend booking a tour with culinary backstreets. It’s probably the best tour I’ve ever taken on any of my travels. The fire ceremony was so special and unique. I feel lucky I was able to experience it. 10/10 experience and I’ll definitely be booking more tours with them in the future! 🙌

Amazing experience! Michelle was light-hearted but super-knowledgeable. The whole tour was excellent… informative, interesting and way beyond expectations. Food and drinks were interesting, different and tasty, and the bonus fire ceremony was incredible! Also loved that it was away from the tourist areas! Can’t think of any way to improve this tour. Probably my favourite culinary backstreets tour to date!

We had a great tour with Chika! We enjoyed getting to explore a new neighborhood in Tokyo and learn more about fermentation — in sake, plum wine, koji, etc. Chika was very knowledgeable and we appreciated how thoughtful she was throughout the day. We were in a group of six, and she made it feel like a very intimate tour.

This was a fascinating tour through a pocket of Tokyo we would never have seen. Diana introduced us to some wonderful characters and delicious local specialties. This was such a fun tour through - the time flew by!

We did the CB Istanbul tour back in 2015. It set the benchmark. Monzen-Nakacho in East Tokyo just cleared it! This was a Christmas gift for my 79-year-old father — six of us in total, plus Mairi and a fellow traveller who became a friend by the end. That’s one of Mairi’s gifts: she brings strangers together and everyone leaves exchanging contact details, little tips on what else to see, how to shop where the locals shop. She’s a New Zealander who has called Tokyo home for 35 years. It shows in every interaction. Mairi took us deep into a part of east Tokyo we would never have explored alone. Monzen-Nakacho is shitamachi — old town, Edo-era streets, generations of the same families doing the same things. You walk past all of it without CB. The food across six hours was exceptional and genuinely local. We tasted a remarkable array of fermented specialties — pickled mochi (surprisingly delicious), fresh shiso juice, artisanal pickles of every variety. The sake tasting at the kaku-uchi — Beach Side, Yamamoto, Macho, lined up in a row — was a highlight. The umeshu bar, Umeshudo, another. The finale at Maguro Standard, the neo-izakaya tuna specialist, was a perfect cap — we arrived to a welcome card with all our names written on it. That kind of warmth you can’t manufacture. The sumo detour at Tomioka Hachiman shrine was the surprise of the day — the birthplace of professional Edo-era sumo, with the actual hand and footprints of the great yokozuna cast in stone. Putting your hand against them is genuinely humbling. Mairi had briefed us on the context beforehand, so it landed properly. The fire ceremony at Fukugawa Fudo-do, same approach — explained in advance, so the meaning arrived with it. My parents were visibly moved. The locals made the tour. At one stop, the owner pulled out his photo albums of the neighbourhood festival and walked us through them, pointing out faces, telling stories. That’s what money can’t buy, and what CB — when it’s firing — consistently delivers. Highly recommended. Ask for Mairi.

My wife and I have been on a number of food tours and this was arguably the best. The Monzen Nakacho area is not super touristy so we were able to calmly experience local spots and had enjoyable moments with restaurant/shop owners. Our guide Michelle had put together an informative and thoughtful tour. We experienced so much and the day was relaxed and personal at all times.

Our guide, Chika, was top notch! Fun, energetic and very engaging. We thoroughly enjoyed every single minute! This tour was not only a food tour but was educational as well. We experienced a Buddhist fire ceremony, learned about fermentation, sake, plum wine and ate tuna ribs! Chika was an utter delight. We all loved this tour and would give it 10 stars if we could!

Our guide, Chika, took us on a wonderful tour of the Monzen Nakacho neighborhood. It was a 6 hour tour but felt longer since we had so many cool stops at small restaurants. It didn't seem like we walked too much. We had no problem meeting her at the subway stop, and she even recognized us first. Her English was very good and with a good sense of humor. We tried food we never would have thought of, which we really appreciated. We capped off a fun evening with making our own Monjayaki. Highly recommend this tour.

Talk about a multipurpose tour! History, food, and walking the city. The food was excellent, the chefs cared deeply about their craft, and Diana was a fun and knowledgeable host to stitch it all together. She took us to restaurants where we felt like family. Being from Texas, I’ll never forget one of the restaurant owners telling Diana the story of the Alamo in Japanese which she then translated to me! 10/10 would recommend

This was such a phenomenal and unmatched experience that I can’t imagine not doing it again. I’ve never been one for food tours, but everyone I spoke to was quick to suggest it considering the sheer variety that can be found in Tokyo. Michelle did not disappoint. She was intimately familiar with the culture, the food, and seemed to have personal relationships with many if not all the places we were brought to. The owners and staff welcomed us with open arms, showcasing a wide range of personalities to go along with the interesting food. Fukugawa meishi was a personal favorite, but there wasn’t one thing we tried that I didn’t enjoy. Finding the start location was easy, the tour was a great mix of cuisine with spots of culture to let us digest between meals. Seriously, I don’t think there’s any way to go wrong with this, and I’ll be sure to look up Culinary Backstreets the next time I’m out of the country.