A Guide Through Tsukiji, and You Buy What You Want

Two hours with a Japanese guide who speaks fluent English, walking the temple and the outer market and explaining what you are looking at. The food is not included, and that is the point rather than an omission: you buy what appeals to you, at the stalls the guide points out, in whatever quantity your appetite and budget allow.

For a market where a single piece of premium tuna can cost more than a full meal elsewhere, that arrangement suits a lot of people better than a fixed menu.

You start at Tsukiji Honganji, whose 1934 building is modelled on Indian Buddhist temples rather than Japanese ones and is one of the more surprising sights in central Tokyo. Then the Tsukiji outer market, the several hundred shops and stalls that stayed put when the wholesale auctions moved to Toyosu in 2018, still selling to chefs and to anyone else who turns up early.

The guide explains the ingredients, the traditional dishes, and the eighty-year history behind the place, and points you at the vendors worth your money for sushi, tamagoyaki, fried fish cakes and whatever is in season.

Up to ten guests, guided in English or Japanese, meeting at the Starbucks near Tsukiji station. Suitable for all fitness levels and for children in prams. Service animals welcome.