Yurakucho Gado-shita

What the guides say about Yurakucho Gado-shita

14. Yakitori under the train tracks. Omoide Yokocho in Shinjuku or the Yurakucho gado-shita arches near Ginza. Smoke, charcoal, trains overhead. The Yurakucho arches are the more local of the two, long brick tunnels under the elevated line with standing-room izakayas that haven't changed since the post-war era.

Stay here and you can walk to counters that visitors otherwise cross the city for. Tempura Kondo needs a booking weeks out, but lunch at the same counters costs well under half the dinner price. Bar High Five is the cocktail bar the world's bartenders visit. It doesn't take reservations, so arrive soon after it opens at 5pm. The cheaper, louder end of the district is under the railway arches at Yurakucho Gado-shita, where yakitori smoke drifts across the pavement from late afternoon. If it rains, Itoya Ginza, the twelve-storey stationery store, is the plan for an hour.

In Ginza itself, the basement of Ginza Six is the polished end of the depachika spectrum, and the Yurakucho arches, a ten-minute walk away, are the rough-and-ready end of everything else. Do both in one evening and you'll understand the range of this city.