There are about 1,500 Italian restaurants in Tokyo, but Alter Ego is one of the most legendary. Here the tajarin pasta is a tangle of delicately thin noodles bathed in a silky butter sauce; the minced duck is grilled on a skewer like a tsukune meatball and drizzled with a balsamic glaze. When Alter Ego opened in 2019, its popularity prompted the world of Japanese fine dining to more seriously consider the appeal of Italian fusion, which had until then been mostly the realm of chain eateries. Half a decade later, Tokyo’s finest chefs are taking inspiration from Italy and beyond to whip up creative fare served on both white tablecloths and at casual counters.
During Japan’s “bubble economy” in the 1980s, many Japanese visited Europe and returned home with a taste for Italian cuisine. Soon chefs at home began cooking Italian food, swapping in local ingredients like shiso (a substitute for then hard-to-find basil). The term itameshi, a portmanteau of Italy and the Japanese word for food, soon entered the lexicon and became a culinary genre. But when imported products became widely available in 1990s, Japanese cooks focused instead on precisely replicating Italian recipes. Yet echoes of itameshi’s legacy live on in Tokyo’s current scene.
Alter Ego was first helmed by the chef Yoji Tokuyoshi, who honed his skills at Osteria Francescana in Modena, Italy, as Massimo Bottura‘s right-hand man. His successor is his former deputy, Hidehito Hirayama, who explains, “The idea is not just to make typical Italian food with Japanese ingredients. We want to create Italian cuisine that can only be found here.” Inspired by both countries, Alter Ego serves tuna sashimi in a soy-based marinade draped with ribbons of prosciutto, after the Italian pairing of mountain and sea, and tender beef tongue simmered with daikon, a twist on Italian bollito misto and oden, a Japanese soup.
The haute-itameshi trend got the Michelin glow in 2022, when a star was awarded to the Tokyo outpost of Gucci Osteria da Massimo Bottura, where the grilled ayu sweetfish comes with a lardo-infused fennel sauce. Then in 2023 came the stylishly minimalist Peace, where the chef, Takahito Oshima, builds on the tradition by combining Japanese, Italian, and French influences: Pasta comes in a chilled kombu kelp dashi with raw sardine and shiso flowers, and bruschetta is topped with pistachio butter and cured ham from France. More recently, in March of last year, the Venezuelan-born and Italian-trained chef Kensuke Okano opened Unito in the residential Meguro ward, where the tasting menu reveals Japanese, Italian, and South American influences, with dishes like arroz con pollo arancini and seafood courses with ceviche, uni, and cold capellini.
Though the reinvigorated interest in Japanese-Italian fusion is more evident in Tokyo’s destination restaurants, it extends to the city’s top pizzerias. The monthly pies at Pizza Studio Tamaki include the “taco-style” Bismarck, layered with cumin-spiced ground beef, cheese, lettuce, and a gooey egg; the Japanese Umami pizza at Pizza Marumo has pecorino and mozzarella cheeses, shiitake mushroom purée, bonito flakes, and emerald green shavings of kombu; and the Nojiri pie at L’ombelico, inside the Trunk Hotel in Yoyogi Park, comes with a pile of plump clams from Hokkaido. At the Pizza Bar on 38th, a Michelin Bib Gourmand spot inside the Mandarin Oriental, Tokyo, Roman-born chef Daniele Cason crafts omakase menus with pizzas bearing duck salsiccia and marbled slices of Wagyu beef. Just a few blocks away is Ciel Pizza, opened last July by the team at Michelin-starred French restaurant Lature, in Shibuya, which features toppings like shirasu (baby sardines), citrusy sansho peppers, and lemons from the Setouchi region of western Japan.
As Japanese-Italian cuisine continues to take on new flavors—serving increasingly as a calling card for ever more cosmopolitan Tokyo—the chefs behind it welcome the style’s evolution. “Diversity is a good thing,” says Hirayama. “I’m excited to see how others approach it.”
This article appeared in the March 2025 issue of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the magazine here.
