The Brooklyn
of Tokyo is
Shimokitazawa.
Shimokitazawa is the coolest neighborhood in Tokyo for late-morning Angel Stain espresso, crate-digging record shops, and soup curry at Magic Spice.
Shimokitazawa packs somewhere north of 20 live houses into a few square blocks south of the train station, and the music comes in every genre nobody's parents listen to. Bear Pond Espresso famously serves its Angel Stain espresso only during certain morning hours, and it sells out fast. Annoying in theory, worth it in practice. The narrow streets loop and dead-end without logic, lined with vintage clothing stores and record shops that reward anyone willing to dig through the crates. Magic Spice serves soup curry in a room that looks like a hallucination, and it's been doing so long enough to be a landmark. The whole neighborhood thrives on the energy of being slightly too cool for Shibuya but too unpretentious to say so.
Packed into Shimokitazawa's narrow lanes are 20 to 30 live houses, enough that a different stage waits on nearly every block.
Other cool neighborhoods in Tokyo.
Nakameguro
Nakameguro peaks during cherry blossom season along the Meguro River, but year-round it's Tokyo's best neighborhood for quiet wine bars and design shops that smell expensive.
Koenji
Koenji is scrappier and louder about it. More punk flyers on telephone poles, cheaper rent, better secondhand kimono shops. The Awa Odori festival in August is chaos.
Jimbōchō
Jimbōchō is Tokyo's 130-bookshop district, a slow-moving grid of secondhand stores, retro coffee shops, and curry counters just north of the Imperial Palace. Recently named the coolest neighborhood in the world. It's a different category from Shimokitazawa. Quieter, older, more intellectual. Worth a full afternoon if your trip has room for both.
Where to go in Shimokitazawa.
Shimokitazawa has maybe three hotels worth knowing about, and none of them are trying to be Shinjuku.
The curry here is unreasonably good.
Weekends start at Disk Union flipping through Japanese pressings you'll never find online, then spiral into the vintage shops lining every narrow street south of the tracks.
Shimokitazawa, corner to corner.
The Shimokitazawa guide.
Good to know.
The boring numbers that decide whether you stay three days or four.
| Currency | JPY |
|---|---|
| Language | Japanese |
| Cost level | $$$$Expensive |
| Best months | Late October to November, plus May |
| Local time | UTC+9 |
| Plug type | US plug · 100V/50Hz-60Hz |
| Emergency | 110 police, 119 ambulance and fire |
The best curry shops cluster south of the station near Daizawa. Walk past the first one you see - the second alley is better.
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Things to know about Shimokitazawa.
What is the Brooklyn of Tokyo?
What is the coolest neighborhood in Tokyo?
Where should I stay in Shimokitazawa, Tokyo?
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