Itoya Ginza

What the guides say about Itoya Ginza

Late morning. The fork. teamLab Planets in Toyosu is the barefoot, water-filled digital art museum that lives up to the phone footage, and you'll need a booked slot. Or walk into Ginza as it opens, for the food basements at Ginza Six, the twelve floors of Itoya Ginza, and a coffee at Cafe de l'Ambre, which has been roasting since 1948 and serves beans aged for years. Ginza is the better choice if teamLab Borderless, at Azabudai Hills near Roppongi, is going to be part of day five instead.

Stay here and you can walk to counters that visitors otherwise cross the city for. Tempura Kondo needs a booking weeks out, but lunch at the same counters costs well under half the dinner price. Bar High Five is the cocktail bar the world's bartenders visit. It doesn't take reservations, so arrive soon after it opens at 5pm. The cheaper, louder end of the district is under the railway arches at Yurakucho Gado-shita, where yakitori smoke drifts across the pavement from late afternoon. If it rains, Itoya Ginza, the twelve-storey stationery store, is the plan for an hour.

Late morning fork. Option one is teamLab Planets in Toyosu, the barefoot museum where you wade through knee-deep water in mirrored rooms. Everyone's seen it on a phone screen, and it still lands harder in person. It sells out, so book it alongside Shibuya Sky. Option two is to walk north into Ginza as the shops open and treat the basement food halls of Ginza Six as a free museum of wagashi, bento and things you didn't know could be gift-wrapped. Itoya Ginza, twelve floors of stationery, is the best rainy-morning shop in Tokyo.