9 most beautiful shops in Tokyo

Streetwear and sneaker emporium Kith has finally landed a flagship store in Tokyo inside Shibuya’s Miyashita Park complex. The New York-based brand teamed up with Snarkitecture, the design studio co-founded by American artist Daniel Arsham, to create the shop space, and it sure is a stunner. 

The aesthetic is reminiscent of Kith stores in the United States, featuring clean slates of marble, stainless steel and glass. The show-stopping ceiling is a highlight, with its installation of white Nike Air Force 1 sneakers lined up along the vaulted archway. The merchandise displays are equally pleasing to the eye, with a commanding pillar of sneakers in one room and curated rows of clothing and accessories meticulously lined up in the other.

Those with a keen eye may recognise Arsham’s signature eroded artwork used on the Kith sign. The same clean colours and style can also be found at Kith Treats on the second floor, a cereal and ice cream dessert bar.

Renowned architect Kengo Kuma has put his creative spin on this soy sauce store in Nihonbashi, giving this long-established brand a modern update. Kuma is best known for his stunning wood-clad structures like the Japan National Stadium, and the wood-heavy interior of this shop has Kuma’s name all over it.

An ode to the shoyu brewer, this flagship store is a reproduction of the brand's warehouse in Kyushu with the highlight being the large shoyu barrels hanging from the ceiling. Special wooden trays known as koji buta, which are also used in shoyu production, double as the display shelves around the shop and are all manufactured by local craftsmen for an authentic feel. 

The shop can be found inside Nihonbashi’s Coredo Muromachi 3 building, and adds a refreshing traditional touch to the skyscrapers of Tokyo’s financial district.

Kengo Kuma’s second store on our list is an art supplies 'laboratory' run by the Terrada warehouse company and inspired by the look and feel of bamboo. Walking into the store is like strolling through a rainbow, with more than 4,500 colour pigments made with natural minerals lined up beautifully against the shop’s back wall in glass jars.

The rainbow wall is just the start, as the store also stocks a number of top-quality traditional East Asian tools; the 200 or so sumi ink sticks are true rarities, very hard to come by these days. There’s also a stunning wall of art brushes which is showcased like a museum display under Kuma’s intricately waved ceiling of flowing bamboo.

The staff are all well versed in the intricacies of the products, and are happy to show you how to use them. Pigment also hosts workshops for those who wish to delve deeper into the world of colour.

Kappabashi is known for its countless stores selling kitchenware and commercial appliances to those in the food industry as well as to regular customers looking to enhance their culinary prowess. Although most shops have a jumble of goods which require a spot of sifting, you’ll also come across a few tidier gems like Majimaya Confectionery.

Majimaya was founded in 1951 and specialises in confectionery tools such as whisks, cake pans and even moulds for traditional Japanese sweets. The store space by architecture firm Kamitopen, which was revamped in 2019, is now housed in a split-level structure designed to let shoppers browse through over 3,000 types of confectionery equipment.

The highlight is the towering display of cookie cutters hanging on a fence-like feature at the centre of the building, with a staircase spiraling around it for easy browsing. The industrial interior fits in well with the aesthetic of the area while the rust-covered exterior just adds to its charm.

If you’re going to visit any Comme des Garçons store in Tokyo, make it the flagship branch in Aoyama. Opened in 1999, the boutique was designed in collaboration with architect Takao Kawasaki, who helped turn this former office space into a sleek structure that both draws attention to the design of the building and showcases the store’s clothing and merchandise in the best possible light.

The store is constructed mainly of glass, with towering floor-to-ceiling windows that look particularly impressive in the evening, when the store is lit up from inside, giving it an ethereal glow from the street.

The brand’s designer and founder Rei Kawakubo also had a significant input on the shop’s interior, which is mainly stark white (as are most Comme des Garçons boutiques), and a perfect backdrop for her dramatic designs.

When a store looks this enchanting, how could you not walk in? Opened in 2020, this is Visvim’s flagship women’s store and is situated along the picturesque Meguro River in a spectacular setting. 

The shop takes over a former home and is so discreet, you may pass by without a second glance. However, past the noren curtains hanging at the entrance, you’ll be welcomed by an awe-inspiring rustic, traditional Japanese interior highlighted with earthen walls, timber beams, and large windows looking out onto the river. 

The renovated residence is the perfect representation of the brand's key values highlighting beauty and genuine craftsmanship. You can see it in the details from the small Japanese garden located at the back to the hanging paper lanterns and hand-carved display tables inside the shop. The attention to detail truly gives this space an immaculate finish and you’ll be hit by a sense of calm while you browse.

This speciality grocer in Nihonbashi sells essentials for dashi soup stock ingredients – the foundation of Japanese cuisine. The shop was refurbished by Schemata Architects in 2017 and is hard to miss as the vivid red of the building stands out from everything else on the block. The colour is not just any red, either. The specific shade was chosen as it best matches the colour of the cross-section of a dried bonito fish – another dashi essential. 

This deep red colour continues throughout the interior of the store as you shop through counters of dashi flakes and dried kombu (seaweed). Sleek copper fixtures and countertops accent the entire space which is mostly constructed of concrete – a modern touch to this traditional store.

When the weather is good, the store doors can be completely opened, letting tons of natural light seep inside as well as giving the store a sense of flow amidst the bustling Nihonbashi area.

Shop for a range of well-designed lifestyle essentials at Kiya Shop. Featuring classic Japanese aesthetics, this sleek store offers gorgeous goods for your home and daily life, with everything from state-of-the-art Japanese knives and lacquer bento boxes to cooking spatulas and artfully-designed sukiyaki pots. The space, designed by Mandai Architects, was created to show off each tool one by one, highlighting the unique craftsmanship that goes into these timeless pieces.

Whether you’re looking for a souvenir from your Tokyo trip or a gift for someone back home, these items are not only beautiful but also actually useful.

In a perfect world, all bookshops would be like this. Tokyo's Klein Dytham Architecture won an award at the World Architecture Festival for their work on Daikanyama T-Site, which is spread across three interlinked buildings adorned with lattices of interlocking Ts. That 'T' stands for rental chain Tsutaya, whose seemingly bottomless pockets helped fund the kind of book emporium that most capital cities can only dream of. 

It's easy to lose hours thumbing through the selections here, which include a good range of English-language titles, art books, antique tomes and magazine back issues. There are also music and DVD sections – Tsutaya's normal stock in trade – as well as branches of Starbucks and Family Mart, while you'll find children's toys, bicycle and pet shops elsewhere in the complex.