Gonpachi Nishi-Azabu

The experience

A three-storey izakaya built like an Edo-era warehouse: open kitchen, heavy beams, lantern light and tiers of balconies looking down into the main hall. The room is what Quentin Tarantino reproduced as the House of Blue Leaves in Kill Bill, and it is also where Koizumi took George W. Bush in 2002. The kitchen does charcoal yakitori, tempura and hand-made soba, with an Edomae sushi counter on the top floor.

One of the few restaurants where the architecture is the reason to book, and the soba and skewers hold up on their own.

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.