The best restaurants in Little Tokyo

Nestled in the neighborhood since 1980, Sushi Gen has been a years-long cult favorite for L.A.’s sushi aficionados. The main draw? A $23 weekday lunch special, complete with a rainbow of sashimi, soup, salad and rice. For a quicker table, head here during the evening, when you’ll be rewarded for waiting with fresh halibut, fatty tuna, sea urchin, monkfish liver, scallops and oysters, all in a wonderfully serene, wood panelled sushi bar setting. Just mind the rules: no personal device usage while dining, and make sure your whole party is present to get seated.

These days, most of L.A.’s very best Edomae-style omakase meals require setting an alarm to snag a difficult Tock reservation, plus the willingness to dine early or on a random, often inconvenient weekday. Not so at Sushi Takeda, which, as of writing, remains surprisingly easy to walk into on any given day for an amazing nigiri-only omakase. Hidden away on the third floor of Little Tokyo’s Weller Court, Hideyuki Takeda’s tiny counter-and-table operation remains somewhat overlooked—even after a recent shout-out in the L.A. Times. Though it does require advance booking, the full $280 experience rivals the city’s very best, while the slightly more reasonable $110 lunch offering and openness to walk-ins make Sushi Takeda a great high-end sushi experience for those who want to be a little spontaneous.

Although this tiny family-run restaurant on First Street first opened in late 2019, Azay can trace its roots back to 1946, when co-owner Jo Ann Hirose’s father opened Anzen Hardware (which has since relocated nearby) in the same storefront. Offering a moderately priced, compact menu of French and Japanese dishes made by Jo Ann’s husband Akira, Azay is best known for offering the elusive Japanese breakfast: a traditional meal consisting of broiled fish, miso soup and choice sides of seasonal vegetables, pickles and tofu, as well as slices of tamago omelette and a bowl of rice. While the breakfast set is always worth an order, don’t skip out on sampling a few French dishes and desserts, including the deftly prepared duck confit and a complex, bittersweet matcha crème brûlée.

Specializing in traditional handmade udon, Marugame Monzo offers excellent bowls of the thick, chewy noodles, plus mesmerizing sights of noodle action through the kitchen’s picture-style window. Behind a large glass, the udon master will roll out the dough and cut strands and strands of the thick, chewy noodles for each order. The traditional bowls are great here; try the hot kitsune udon topped with fried tofu, or the cold plum shiso bukkake udon. For a fun mash-up of Japanese and Italian cuisines, go for the popular miso carbonara udon. Just be prepared to wait: As quite probably the best udon shop in Los Angeles, peak dinner time can cause gaggles of groups to queue all the way down the block.

Get here early, or at least be prepared for a wait, because this tiny restaurant is a Little Tokyo mainstay and only has around 20 seats—and they fill up fast. Once you're seated, dive in and start ordering: Eel and Santa Barbara uni are two excellent choices, while the blue crab hand roll avoids some common pitfalls (too much mayonnaise, soggy seaweed) and is instead light, crisp and filling. It can be slightly intimidating for newbies here—the service isn't exactly warm—but order with confidence, always keep an eye on the specials board, take your time and enjoy the chefs' handiwork.

Among the many standout ramen shops in Little Tokyo is Men Oh, tucked away in the bustling Honda Plaza. A small shop with a handful of tables and a long bar, Men Oh hails from the Tokushima region of Japan, where the dominant industry is pig farming. Thus, the signature item, the tokushima, is an unctuous, deeply flavorful bowl thanks to its 16-hour–simmered pork broth. With toppings that include not only lovely slices of tender chashu, but also strips of stir-fried butabara pork, green onion, bean sprouts, seasoned egg and bamboo shoots, it’s a complex, filling and completely fulfilling bowl of ramen to hunt down

This charming Japanese diner's been around since 1972—and while Suehiro recently relocated from Little Tokyo to Downtown L.A., the unpretentious menu still offers just as much old-school Japanese comfort from a much larger, sleeker dining room. Tuck into decades-plus old recipes like curry udon, shrimp tempura, straightforward donburi and okonomi combo platess. Tuck away into one of the booths for more privacy, or sidle up to the bar and watch day and night street views of Tokyo play out on a large flat-screen TV, no matter the time of day. Speaking of time of day, this spot is open until 3am on Fridays and Saturdays. A newer cocktail concept, Bar Suehiro (Wed–Sun, 7pm–1am) offers impeccably crafted highballs and other creations—nonalcoholic and alcoholic alike—from Steep After Dark and Seven Grand alum Huy Nang Pham.

Upon entering this Hakata-based chain’s Central Avenue location, you’ll be met with a chorus of “Irashaimase.” You’ll then look over the order sheet, where you can customize your bowl to your exact specifications—choose the intensity (i.e. saltiness) of your broth, the doneness of your noodles and toppings (egg, wontons, spare ribs, garlic ships, even cod roe)—and combine chicken rice balls, deep fried cheese egg rolls and gyoza additions. Half the fun is ordering too many toppings on your first visit, which will arrive one after another in a parade of tiny bowls. While Little Tokyo has plenty of ramenyas, we find ourselves coming back to Shin-Sen-Gumi for its rich yet light tonkotsu broth and the always satisfying ability to design your own bowl.

On the second floor of Weller Court, this longtime yakitori joint serves a small, but well-executed menu of chicken skewers, appetizers and rice bowls alongside a large sake and beer list. Grilled over binchotan charcoal, the tender, juicy chicken parts taste best when paired with a dash of hot mustard, or maybe some ginger and green onion paste. The hidden-away nature of the place makes this cozy spot perfect for an excellent booze-laced, casual meal in Little Tokyo.

This tiny family-run restaurant can trace its neighborhood roots back to 1929, when the Morishita family first opened a restaurant on nearby First Street. Here, you’ll find affordable lunch specials and excellent nigiri by the piece, all inside a quiet, homey sushi bar with thick wooden frames around the doors and windows and a handwritten daily specials board. Located on the third floor of the Little Tokyo Galleria, it’s hard to just wander into Sushi Go 55, but  when you’ve finally cozied up next to an old couple eating their chirashi bowl and teriyaki combos, or even just picked up a sashimi combo order to-go, you’ll understand why people have kept coming back to this mall-anchored spot time and time again.

Open since 1976 and taken over by Hiroshi Yamauchi a decade later, the family-owned Kouraku offers no-frills Japanese diner fare inspired by the food eaten in Japan between the end of World War II and the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Allegedly, It’s also the first ramen restaurant in the United States, and spent much of the early aughts as a beloved late night haunt. Today, Mihoki Yamauchi continues to carry on her late husband’s legacy at Kouraku, albeit with more regular eating hours. You’ll find a highly affordable menu of ramen, curry rice and a few less commonly offered Japanese comfort dishes like menchi katsu (a panko-crusted hamburger patty served with Bull-Dog sauce and rice) and tenshin chahan (a Chinese-style shrimp omelette covered in a light gravy).

This no-frills modern café in Weller Court stays true to its name, offering steaming hot matcha tea, lattes, soft serve and a few similarly flavored pastries, including a fluffy light green cheesecake. Here, you can truly taste the difference in quality: Midori uses a base mix of Japanese green tea and ceremonial grade matcha for all of its drinks. While you can’t go wrong with the now more commonplace matcha latte the next time you find yourself in Little Tokyo, the soft serve, which comes lightly dusted with matcha, works as a wonderful cap to a nearby meal.

The original outpost of this veritable ramen mecca (with four total locations) dates back to 2002, but time hasn’t stopped peak hour lines from forming outside Daikokuya in Little Tokyo. A wraparound counter faces the open kitchen, adding to a convivial atmosphere well-suited to slurping up bowls of flavorful pork broth and chewy noodles. The must-order here is the Daikoku Ramen, whose Chijire-style noodles sit in a rich tonkotsu soup and arrive to your seat topped with slices of kurobuta pork belly (though pork fans can amp it up with the richer, kotteri-style cut), boiled egg, bamboo shoots, bean sprouts and green onions. Add an order of house-made pan-fried pork gyoza or crispy pork tonkatsu to make the wait worthwhile.

Before “plant-based” became a meaningless buzzword, this Tokyo-based noodle chain had already begun making kombu-based vegetarian broth in 2011. With four locations in L.A., including one in Little Tokyo, Rakkan Ramen offers an array of light, flavorful soups with whimsical gem-based names like Garnet (miso-flavored), Pearl (shio-based) and Amber (soy-based). Yes, there are vegan options, but even if you’re primarily a meat-eater, you can come away from Rakkan feeling satisfied, particularly with the Spicy Garnet topped with egg and chashu pork.