Kayaba Coffee

The experience

A two-storey wooden townhouse from 1916 on a Yanaka corner, turned into a coffee shop in 1938, closed in 2006 and reopened in 2009 by a local preservation effort. The Taisho-era ceiling beams, the front sign, the chairs and the white cups are the originals; upstairs is a low tatami room. The menu keeps the old items — the egg sandwich and the 'Russian', coffee cut with cocoa.

A genuine pre-war kissaten still working as a neighbourhood cafe rather than a museum piece.

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.