Finding the Real ‘Midnight Diner’

every night at During the darkest and most depressing times of this pandemic, one TV show I watched over and over helped me get through it. midnight dinnera series about Netflix Set in a Tokyo restaurant, it becomes a healing balm and reminder of the warmth of human connection.

The chef of this wine house is called “Master”, and his cooking skills are surrounded by service counters on three sides, where loyal regulars sit at the counter and bathe with each other. Perhaps considered the quirky cousin of the 1980s NBC sitcoms cheersEach episode tells a sweet, sad, or occasionally heartbreaking story. The Master, a taciturn man with a mysterious scar on his face, acts like their conscience and confidant, helping them understand the world. The characters are kind, quirky, and loyal.

In the opening scene, a taxi dreamily passes through the neighborhoods of Shinjuku, and the master gives a little voice-over: “My day starts when people finish their work and rush home… My restaurant is open from midnight to Seven o’clock in the morning. They call it “Midnight Dinner.” Do I still have clients? More than you think.

After some research it was confirmed that the izakaya in the show was completely fictional, but I wanted to believe that a place with that kind of food and that feeling was real. On a recent trip to Tokyo, I started looking for something similar.

“The ideal in my heart”

I started seeing the elements I was hoping to find at an alarming rate. I immediately discovered a pub the size of a postage stamp near my home where the people were friendly and curious. When I first had dinner at an izakaya near Nakano, the food was surprisingly befitting of a casual venue: hearty but not fussy sashimi, fish collar, sesame-crusted cucumber, grilled mushrooms and a glass or two of Asahi Super Dry. The busy and cheerful waiter still took the time to help me navigate the menu.

Just 24 hours into my trip, I met the restaurant reviewer Makimoto Mackey exist Toranomon Yokochoa multi-restaurant project he helped create, is like a food court in heaven. When I arrived with my repairman and translator, Mai Nomura, he was wearing a fedora and talking to a chef. Over fried chicken, grilled sardines, fried oysters and fried tofu, we bonded over love midnight dinnerbut my first real question to him was whether such a place existed.