Originally Posted by
Pickles
I like Takazawa. Problem is everybody likes Takazawa, and it's on the "foodie" circuit, which means hard to book and your fellow diners are likely to be kind of person you'd rather not be, but are.
We went to Takazawa in October, and it was a dining highlight (among many - Japan is a fertile ground in that department). It's a room with maybe up to ten diners spread around a reasonably large-sized room - so it's unclear to me, other than for snarkiness purposes, how the fellow diners would have impacted our experience (or judgment of ourselves, for that matter).
The chef-owner and his wife (who is the anchor of the front of the house) were wonderfully hospitable, and coincidentally, I had just read about him in a magazine-sponsored culinary competition on the plane to NRT. He hadn't seen the issue yet because it hadn't made it to Japan! It was a nice entry point to conversation, and both of them were very open about their experiences.
The food, too, was interesting and tasty (not necessarily in that order
). Is it hard to book? Probably, although our concierge didn't seem to have trouble. I don't think you need to be a pretentious twit (or however "foodie" is being implicitly defined about) to eat there, though (and it probably would dull your experience there, too).
To your original request: must eat? I dunno. Highly recommended, for sure. But to answer the initial query, I'd want to know more about your food priorities. You can get world-class food from so many cuisines in Tokyo (and even from so many Japanese culinary specialties, too, like ramen, tempura, sushi, etc). Is your priority specifically these kinds of Japanese dishes? If so, Takazawa might not make the 'must eat' list. If not, it would be under consideration for me.