Originally Posted by
Bohemian1
We had a chat with one of the 'invite only' restaurateurs in Tokyo and his rationale was somewhat similar. Low number of possible covers per night, wanted to support a regular clientele and weren't really equipped to deal with non-Japanese speakers. And they are still booked months in advance.
Agree that's the general consensus. Although it seems these days they are changing, slowly but surely. The most recent membership restaurant I went to (opened by an apprentice from Kyoaji), although the main chef still spoke Japanese only, had specifically trained a younger chef to speak enough English in order to give simple explanations of the dishes, which I really appreciated. ^