Kanda Matsuya

The experience

An Edo-style soba house in Kanda Sudacho, open since 1884 in a wooden building that survived the rebuilds around it. A noodle maker kneads, rolls and cuts buckwheat by hand through the day in view of the room, and the soba goes out cold on a seiro with dipping tsuyu. Tables are largely communal, so you eat elbow to elbow with office workers.

Hand-cut Edo soba at lunch-counter prices in a room that has not been redesigned for anybody.

What a membership adds.

Everything above is free: the name, the photo, the rating, the exact spot. What members get is the part you can't Google: the sourced insider tip for this place (what to order, when to go, what to skip), every day of your trips unlocked in full with the insider tip on every researched stop, and the concierge at full strength, answering with your own insider tips, no daily meter.