260 years of unagi tradition at Izuei Honten @ Ueno, Tokyo

I was checking for lunch on my first day arrival to Tokyo during my March 2015 trip. Izuei Honten also show up as serving among the best unagi meal in Tokyo during my online search. So I decided to try on how well their prepare meal as this establishment already exist for almost 260 years. This restaurant is different from other restaurant in Tokyo which usually have limited space and only have 10-20 seats. But Izuei Honten have 7 floors of dining space which can occupy 150 patrons. The staffs are all dressed in proper traditional kimono. This place is recommended for unagi lovers.

Taste:9/10(Delicious. The unagi were well prepared and the rice were seasoned. The unagi here was pure, fresh and without any adulteration or masking of flavours. They have sansho (Japanese pepper) to put on unagi which makes the taste pungent).
Price:5/10(Near expensive. The unagi meal set shown below priced at 2,700 Yen. If you come early and able to have their lunch set, the price is lower).


Nice decoration inside the shop.

Cute utensils. Extra unagi sauce, sansho pepper and soy sauce.

I ordered the unagi (grilled eel) set.

The unagi grilled to perfection. Slight crispy with less sweet sauce when compared to my home country version. The rice were flavoured very well with their special sauce. The meal was non oily at all.

The texture were soft and non oily.

The meal set comes with pickles and soup. The soup was quite clear unlike miso soup which is cloudy.


There are plenty of miniatures inside the shop.

As soon you enter the entrance, you will be greeted by the miniatures display.

This is how the shop look like. Its just around 5 minutes walk from Ueno station.

GPS/Coordinate: 35.709723, 139.772690
Address: 2-12-22 Ueno, Taito, Tokyo 110-0005, Japan
Phone: +81 3-3831-0954
Hours: 11:00 am – 9:30 pm
Public transport: Ueno station. You can reach this station via JR or Tokyo Metro. This is a main interchange point on east of Tokyo.