Koukashita, “under the elevated tracks”, is a 700-meter strip of restaurants, bars and shops built in 2016 in the space beneath the Toyoko line as it leaves Nakameguro Station. It starts with a Tsutaya bookshop and cafe directly under the platforms and continues as a row of izakaya, a Thai kitchen, a ramen counter, a standing sake bar, a Hong Kong-style noodle shop and a few design stores, each wedged between concrete pillars with trains rumbling overhead every three minutes.
It is the neighborhood’s dinner street. Walk the length once to choose, then eat at a counter and let the vibration of the trains set the pace. The combination of the bookshop at dawn and the bars at midnight makes it the bookend to any Nakameguro day.
Tips
- The Tsutaya Books under the station is open from 7 a.m. with a Starbucks inside, good for an early coffee before the river
- The standing sake bar and the yakitori counters at the Yutenji end fill up by 19:00
- The strip runs 700 meters along the tracks; follow it south-west and you end up in quieter Yutenji