Asakusa Imahan Kokusai-dori Honten

The experience

Asakusa Imahan has been cooking beef in Asakusa since 1895; the head restaurant is on Kokusai-dori, west of the temple crowds. Kimono-clad staff cook Japanese Black wagyu sukiyaki at the table in a cast-iron pan with sugar, soy and a raw egg to dip. Seating runs from tables to raised tatami and private tatami rooms with a leg well under the table.

Table-side sukiyaki of a grade you rarely get to watch being cooked for you, in a house that has done it for 130 years.

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.