Tempura Yamanoue Ginza - Traditional Japanese Lunch in Trendy Ginza Six

Tempura Yamanoue Ginza is one of the outlets of Tempura Yamanoue, a traditional Japanese restaurant whose roots go as far back as the 1950s when it opened in Tokyo’s historic Hilltop Hotel. A traditional restaurant establishment in GINZA SIX, a new trendy mall in the prime shopping district of Ginza, was a combination we could not resist and so we made a Tablecheck reservation for lunch.

Tempura Yamanoue Ginza - Japanese Lunch in Trendy Ginza Six

GINZA SIX Tokyo

According to Wikipedia, Ginza Six is a luxury shopping mall that was built on the location of the former Matsuzakaya department store, said to be Ginza’s first ever department store. The mall was inaugurated in April 2017, with a ceremony attended by VIPs including the Prime Minister of Japan, the Governor of Tokyo and the Chairman of LVMH Apparently, this mall has the largest retail space in Ginza, Tokyo. We did not have all this information at the time of our visit. But we did think that it was an impressive building with interesting tenants and a beautiful interior. Currently, cats in space suits can be found ‘hanging out’ at the atrium. They are Japanese artist Kenji Yanobe’s astronaut cats art installation. They were installed in April 2024 in celebration of the mall’s 7th anniversary and will remain till summer 2025.

Tempura Yamanoue Ginza Six

It appears from the Tempura Yamanoue website that the tempura restaurant at Hilltop Hotel store has closed. This leaves the Ginza Six outlet as the flagship and two other outlets at Roppongi and Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi Main Store. Located on the 13th level of Ginza Six, the restaurant enjoys natural light from the large windows. We had good seats at the counter with a front row view of the tempura chef and his assistant.

The chef had elected to retain their practice of storing their ingredients in an ice refrigerator to keep them fresh. The wooden doors provide an attractive and traditional backdrop to the ‘performance’ by the chef.

Tempura Lunch at GINZA SIX

There are several lunch menus to choose from. Here is a picture of one portion of the menu. We selected a mid-range menu – Chef’s Menu No.2 that costs 16,000yen per person.

The raw ingredients to be used for our meal were nicely organised and presented for our scrutiny by the chef. The seafood items certainly looked deliciously translucent and fresh.

Tempura Yamanoue Ginza Six Lunch Menu review

From here onwards, I cannot remember all the details and the sequence of each item served. These are some of the seafood items. The two fish items I can remember were barracuda and sea eel. The items were all very good, fresh ingredients coated with a thin film of batter. The best items were the prawns and oysters.

Just as interesting were the tempura vegetables. Here are pictures of some of them. The best items were the gingko nuts, sweet potato and lotus root.

Sadly, all good things come to an end. When they showed us the different styles of rice preparations, we knew the end of the meal was near. We picked the tendon and tencha options.

We were happy with both options, but felt that the tencha presentation (picture below) looked more attractive. The rice covered with tea also gave it a calming effect.