Every night in In the darkest, most depressing depths of the pandemic, one TV show, which I watched over and over again, helped me get through it. midnight dinnera Netflix series set in a Tokyo restaurant, became a healing balm and a reminder of the warmth of being surrounded by people.
The chef at this izakaya, referred to only as “Master,” cooks surrounded by a service counter on three sides, where regular customers sit and bathe in the company of others. Perhaps considered a quirky cousin to the ’80s NBC sitcom. HealthEach episode tells a sweet, sad, and sometimes heartbreaking story. Master, a man of few words with a mysterious scar on his face, is like their conscience and a confidant who helps them make sense of the world. The characters are kind, quirky and loyal.
As a taxi dreamily glides through the Shinjuku neighborhood in the opening credits, Master gives a short voiceover: “When people finish their day and hurry home, my day begins… My restaurant is open from midnight until seven in the morning. They call it ‘Midnight Diner’. Do I even have clients? More than one would expect.”
A little research confirmed that the izakaya in the show is totally fictional, but I wanted to believe that a place with that kind of food and that kind of feeling was real. On a recent trip to Tokyo, I set out to find one just like it.
“An ideal in your heart”
I’m starting to see elements of what I expected to find surprisingly quickly. I immediately find a postage-stamp-sized bar in my neighborhood where people are friendly and curious. At my first dinner at an izakaya in the Nakano neighborhood, the food is surprisingly good for a casual place: generous, simple sashimi, fish necklace, crushed sesame cucumbers, seared mushrooms, and one or two Super Dry Asahi. The busy and cheerful waiters still take the time to help me navigate the menu.
Barely 24 hours into my trip, I meet a restaurant critic. makimoto makimoto in Toranomon Yokochoa multi-restaurant project that he helped create that is like a food court in the sky. He’s wearing a short-brimmed hat and talking to a chef when I arrive with my repairman and translator, Mai Nomura. As we eat fried chicken, grilled sardines, fried oysters and fried tofu, we are united by the love of midnight dinnerbut my first real question for him is does such a place exist.