01 / ABOUT THE PLACE
About this place
Tucked into a quiet residential pocket a few minutes on foot from Sendagaya Station, Ichido is an unhurried izakaya built around painstaking, handmade cooking and a well-curated drinks shelf. Settling in with a drink usually calls for a small plate or two: house-made potato salad crowned with salty, umami-rich salted squid entrails (shiokara), or the signature motsu nikomi, where domestic beef offal is parboiled from scratch before simmering down into a deeply savory miso broth. Torched vinegared mackerel from Hachinohe, charred crisp at the surface with a kitchen blowtorch, strikes a similarly satisfying chord.
Substantial meat dishes anchor the heart of the menu, headlined by tender spare ribs braised for around 5 hours in red wine and meltingly soft kakuni pork belly that yields at the touch of a chopstick. The drinks list keeps pace across every category. Draft Yebisu beer is poured into meticulously cleaned, polished glassware, flanked by regional sakes including Konaki Junmai and Oyaji Gokuraku Junmai from Tottori Prefecture's Chiyomusubi Sake Brewery in Sakaiminato. Japanese whiskies like Yamazaki, Hakushu, and Hibiki sit beside wine selections and casual mixed drinks, including fruit-forward haskap berry sours.
Evenings suit solo guests leaning into a quiet counter seat as easily as gatherings over set banquet courses, while weekday lunch hours draw local workers for rotating sets like salt-grilled mackerel, chicken nanban, and house beef curry. Dinner reservations can be arranged in advance, and payments are accepted via major credit cards and PayPay.
