Best (and affordable) Sushi restaurants in Tokyo

You can find many sushi restaurants in Tokyo, some Michelin star quality but luckily you can also find affordable sushi in Tokyo. For the Japanese sushi is an accompaniment for beer and sake, but foreigners often make a meal of it. Still, it’s not a dinner that should take a long time for you to finish. Some touristic spots have a time limit, and some restaurants only have standing spaces.

On this page I’ve listed my three favorite (and cheap) sushi restaurants in Tokyo. I’ll tell you where to get the best cheap sushi, where to get an unique experience and where to get affordable high quality sushi.

Genki Sushi in Subaya is quite popular with tourists because of the experience. Here the sushi isn’t only served on a conveyor belt, you also get to order it from your own screen. You’ll sit next to each other facing the wall and the conveyor belt, and after you’ve ordered your dishes they’ll stop right in front of you. The sushi is very affordable here, you pay around ¥190 for each plate with two pieces. As you might expect it’s not very romantic, but it’s a real ‘only in Japan’ experience. Extra tip: if you press the green button on the bottom left side of the screen you can switch to English.

In Shinjuku, close to the Shinjuku train station you’ll find ‘Oedo Conveyer Belt Sushi’. They have several branches but this restaurant is called the Oedo Shinjuku South Exit Store.. This place is even more cheap as Genki Sushi, and hardly any tourists come here. It feels like Tokyo’s best kept secret for sushi. They don’t have the Western style roles like we know them in Europe (don’t expect a California roll), nor do they have the side dishes like seaweed salad or soybeans. But they do have the real Japanese sushi: nigiri (served on a small block of rice) and maki ( a seaweed roll with one ingredient). Plates with a variety of dishes will roll by your seat and you can just take the ones you’d like. You can also order sushi from a menu if your choice isn’t on the belt. At the end you’ll pay for each plate you’ve collected. Just like almost every sushi restaurant, the green tea comes for free.

For high quality sushi that’s still (reasonably) affordable I recommend Shari the Tokyo Sushi Bar in Ginza. Here they serve the Western style sushi rolls as we know them: maki rolls with several ingredients together in one roll. The chefs make a work of art of each dish, making it almost a pity to eat. They also have several vegetarian options here. The healthy starter is a platter with several healthy and vegetarian dishes, and besides the sushi rolls you can also order all kinds of other dishes like spring rolls and salads. Keep in mind that many prices are listed for one piece or person, but the minimum order is two. You’ll pay around ¥200 for each piece of sushi.