Michelin Bib Gourmand 2025: Tokyo’s 9 Exceptional Soba Destinations

What is Bib Gourmand?

Bib Gourmand is one of Michelin’s evaluation criteria that recognizes restaurants offering exceptional value—places that serve carefully prepared dishes using quality ingredients for under ¥5,000. The Bib Gourmand selection is updated annually, and in 2025, 110 restaurants in Tokyo, 59 in Osaka, and 49 in Kyoto received this distinction.

Below are the nine soba restaurants in Tokyo that earned the prestigious Bib Gourmand recognition for 2025.

1. Osoba no Kouga

Overview

A restaurant that shows meticulous attention to detail in ingredients, interior design, and tableware to provide delicious soba and personalized service to each customer. The menu features unique offerings like oyster soba, sea urchin soba, sudachi citrus soba, and limited-time Chinese-style soba. Prices range from affordable options (¥950-¥1,500) to specialty soba dishes (¥3,000-¥4,000), with course meals available for ¥5,000. Selected as one of the “100 Best Restaurants” in 2024. According to reviews, the restaurant has many regulars, though newcomers can comfortably drop in for lunch without feeling intimidated. The evening atmosphere is more drink-centric.

Restaurant Details

2. Soba Tajima

Overview

A soba restaurant near Arisugawa Park with pleasantly reasonable prices. The lunch set (¥1,200) is particularly good value, offering mori or kake soba, small side dishes, pickles, and either mugitoro rice or chicken soboro rice bowl. Course meals are also available at excellent prices (¥3,200-¥5,600). It’s perfectly acceptable to visit alone, enjoy some appetizers with drinks, and finish with soba. Selected for the “100 Best Restaurants” five times between 2017 and 2024. The restaurant offers abundant side dishes and appetizers, making it appealing to those who enjoy drinking.

Restaurant Details

3. Soba Osame

Overview

An unusual restaurant that operates in reverse of the standard pattern—lunch is by reservation only, while dinner offers both course options and à la carte dining. Note that even during dinner hours, customers must order at least one drink. The restaurant may refuse customers wearing strong perfume to preserve the soba’s delicate aroma.

The lunch course (¥5,500) focuses on sobagaki (buckwheat dough) and includes five types of appetizers and a Japanese omelet. During dinner, you can enjoy appetizers with sake and finish with your choice of soba. Among the warm soba options, herring soba, simmered for five days, is available à la carte. Unique evening options include a tasting course (¥7,500) with a variety of sake, shochu, and fruit wines alongside the meal, and an omakase course (¥9,350) featuring eight items including soba and dessert. Unusually for a soba restaurant, champagne is also available. Japanese soccer legend Hidetoshi Nakata is known to frequent this establishment.

Originally located in Nishiazabu, Soba Osame has relocated to Mejiro, where it occupies a renovated 100-year-old traditional house.

Restaurant Details

4. Kyourakutei

Overview

A restaurant with a former Michelin star and impeccable reputation in both quality and popularity. The soba here is perfect in flavor, texture, and throat feel. Their specialty dish, “Hiyamugi” (cold wheat noodles), has been featured in Michelin guides for 12 consecutive years. The restaurant primarily offers soba and tempura. The waiting system involves writing your name and arrival time in a registry at the entrance. For the 11:30 opening, you need to be present in front of the restaurant to secure a spot.

Located in Kagurazaka, Tokyo’s geisha district, Kyourakutei has been selected as one of the “100 Best Restaurants” six times. Lunch sets featuring soba, udon, or hiyamugi with one side dish are available for ¥1,500, while various tempura soba sets range from ¥2,600 to ¥3,000. Beverages include sake, beer, and shochu, with highballs also available among the whiskey options.

Restaurant Details

5. Toshian Karibe

Overview

Lunch focuses primarily on meals in the ¥1,000-¥2,000 range, while the restaurant transforms into an izakaya-style soba establishment in the evening. This hand-made soba restaurant offers various appetizers and a wide selection of sake, primarily Japanese. Both lunch and dinner omakase courses are available.

According to reviews, the restaurant gets busy during lunch hours but the wait isn’t typically too long (though this can vary). The dinner course comprises 9 dishes for ¥9,900, including sobagaki, hassun (seasonal appetizer platter), two daily special dishes, tempura, small dishes, two kinds of soba, and dessert. The lunch course offers 8 items for ¥6,600: sobagaki, appetizer platter, tamagoyaki (Japanese omelet), tempura, small dish, two kinds of soba, and dessert. The dinner course offers particularly good value.

Restaurant Details

6. Asakusa Hirayama

Overview

In Asakusa’s “soba kingdom,” where numerous prestigious soba establishments with over 100 years of history are concentrated, Hirayama emerged as a rising star and the only Asakusa soba restaurant featured in the 2025 Bib Gourmand. Founded in 2022, it quickly gained popularity among Asakusa’s discerning soba connoisseurs, becoming a restaurant with consistent lines.

Walk-ins are welcome, but priority is given to customers with reservations. Lunch ranges from ¥1,000 to ¥2,000, while dinner focuses on tempura and drinks. The restaurant is particular about sake sourced from around Japan, offering only two beer varieties as alternative alcoholic beverages. Though called “Asakusa,” it’s actually closer to Tawaramachi Station (the next stop after Asakusa on the Tokyo Metro Ginza Line). The interior departs from traditional soba restaurant aesthetics, offering a stylish bar-like ambiance. Beyond standard soba, creative dishes like cold soba with tomato and jyunna (edible chrysanthemum) are available.

Restaurant Details

7. Hamacho Kaneko

Overview

Kaneko is a popular restaurant in the Nihonbashi Suitengu area, an area that retains old Edo atmosphere. Despite being a relatively new soba establishment, it exudes a charm that complements the neighborhood’s historic ambiance. Known not only for its meticulously crafted soba but also for its excellent tempura served freshly fried. With a rich selection of alcoholic beverages, including Japanese sake, many adults enjoy the restaurant as a sophisticated drinking establishment with tempura as appetizers.

The restaurant offers over 20 varieties of tempura. Lunch menus range from ¥1,300 to ¥2,000. The house specialty is the “aimori,” which combines both soba and hiyamugi (cold wheat noodles) in one serving. Multiple reviews mention being able to enter without waiting despite the restaurant being full during lunch hours, though this depends on timing. Located just a 4-minute walk from Suitengumae Station.

Restaurant Details

8. Ittoan

Overview

Near Higashi-Jujo Station, Ittoan offers a warm, wooden interior that creates a comfortable, relaxing atmosphere. The restaurant serves nihachi soba (80% buckwheat, 20% wheat flour) with such a high aroma that it could be mistaken for pure buckwheat soba. A wide variety of appetizers called “sobamae” (soba starters) are available, including assorted three kinds of soybeans, three kinds of miso pickles, and beef with plum sauce. The sake selection is also extensive.

A sign at the entrance reads, “As the restaurant is run by just the owner and his wife, please visit only if you have time to spare.” According to one customer review, it took 90 minutes from ordering to finishing the meal. Soba options include single variety (¥1,100), two varieties (¥1,800), and with tempura (¥3,300).

What makes this soba restaurant special is that they source buckwheat from 25 contracted production areas, mill it in-house, and adjust the milling and preparation methods for each production area and variety. Course menus are listed but temporarily suspended as of March 2025. Selected for the “100 Best Restaurants” six times. Located just 2 minutes from JR Higashi-Jujo Station.

Restaurant Details

9. Edo Soba Hosokawa

Overview

Located near the Edo-Tokyo Museum in Ryogoku, “Hosokawa” is an Edo-style soba restaurant run by Chef Hosokawa, who is uncompromising in his craft. Following his philosophy of “quality ingredients first,” he travels throughout Japan in search of the best buckwheat, vegetables, and seafood. The restaurant is known for its conger eel tempura and simmered conger eel.

Stepping into the restaurant, you’re greeted by a sophisticated space that harmoniously blends traditional Japanese aesthetics with modern design. The chef is a true craftsman who only serves what he personally finds delicious. He sources buckwheat from across Japan in its raw, unhulled state, peels only what’s needed the day before, and stone-grinds it fresh each morning. The soba is then made without any binding agents, allowing customers to enjoy the authentic taste of buckwheat.

According to reviews, a particularly popular dish is the cold oyster soba (¥2,300), featuring three large, plump oysters. While the restaurant’s website lists both lunch and dinner hours, as of March 2025, the restaurant’s homepage indicates that “evening service is temporarily suspended.” Selected for the “100 Best Restaurants” twice.

Restaurant Details

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