Tokyo northeast · TaitoNo.288★Open in map →
Kappabashi Kitchen Town
An 850-metre wholesale street in Taito with about 160 shops selling knives, tableware, kitchen equipment, shop fittings and plastic food samples.
Kappabashi is a wholesale street that never quite stopped being one. A few tool dealers and secondhand traders set up here in the first year of Taisho, 1912; by 1921 they had organised into an association and a streetcar was running down the road. A century on, the street holds about 850 metres of Route 56 — from the Kikuyabashi crossing on Asakusa-dori north to the Kinryusho crossing on Kototoi-dori — and roughly 160 shops on it sell tools for food and nothing else. The name has two competing explanations. One is prosaic: raincoats, kappa, hung out to dry on a nearby bridge whenever the weather turned fine. The other is that around 180 years ago a merchant named Kappaya Kihachi funded drainage works on the Shinbori canal, and the kappa river-spirits of the Sumida came out at night to help him dig.
Why it stays quiet
Nearly every visitor to Asakusa walks past the foot of this street without turning up it. It is a professional supply district rather than a shopping attraction, which is precisely why the knives are better and cheaper than the ones sold to tourists a few blocks east.
Background & history
The district took shape in the first year of Taisho, 1912, when a handful of tool dealers and secondhand traders opened here. In 1921 they organised as the Gosei-kai and a streetcar line was laid along Kappabashi-dori, which fixed the shape the street still has. The Asakusa Kappabashi Densha-dori Shoko-kai followed in 1947 as the postwar trade rebuilt itself. The association runs the street today under the registered name Kappabashi Dogugai, and holds a tool festival along it each autumn.
What to look for
- The knife shops
- High-quality Japanese-made blades, sold to the restaurant trade rather than to gift shoppers.
- Food sample shops
- The lifelike plastic food models used in restaurant windows nationwide, sold by the single piece.
- Noren, signboards and fittings
- Curtains, signage, ornaments and display fixtures — the visual furniture of a Japanese restaurant.
- Lacquerware and pro equipment
- Urushi bowls and serving ware alongside professional stoves and confectionery and bread-making tools.
How to enjoy it
Walk the street end to end once before buying anything — the shops are narrowly specialised, so the knife you actually want may be four doors past the first knife shop you see. Go on a weekday morning, when the trade is open. Pair it with Sensoji ten minutes east or Ueno Park about fifteen minutes west. Allow ninety minutes; longer if you are buying a blade, because choosing one properly is a conversation.
How to actually get there
- Tokyo Stn → Ueno Stn (JR Yamanote Line, ~8 min)
- Ueno Stn → Tawaramachi Stn (Tokyo Metro Ginza Line, ~4 min)
- Tawaramachi Stn → Kikuyabashi crossing, south end of the street (walk, ~5 min)
- Ginza Line to Tawaramachi, then five minutes on foot
- Tokyo Stn → (JR Yamanote or Keihin-Tohoku Line, bound for Ueno, ~8 min) → Ueno Stn → (Tokyo Metro Ginza Line, bound for Asakusa, ~4 min) → Tawaramachi Stn → walk northwest along Asakusa-dori to the Kikuyabashi crossing and turn north into Kappabashi-dori (~5 min). Total ~25 min.
- Out the north end to Iriya, or south to Asakusa
- From the top of the street, Iriya Stn on the Hibiya Line is about 6 minutes' walk. From the bottom, Sensoji and Asakusa Stn are about 10 minutes east. Most people reach the north end, turn, and shop their way back down.
Before you go
- Cash
- Card acceptance varies shop to shop and some of the smallest specialists are cash-only, so carry some. If you want tax-free processing, bring your passport and ask at the counter first — not every shop offers it.
- Closing days
- This is a wholesale district first. Many shops close on Sundays and public holidays, and hours run roughly 10:00–17:00, so a Sunday afternoon finds shutters. A weekday morning is the street at full strength.
- Another way
- Iriya Stn on the Hibiya Line is about 6 minutes from the north end; Asakusa Stn (Ginza, Asakusa and Tsukuba Express lines) is about 10 minutes from the south end.
- After you get off
- Leave Tawaramachi Stn and walk northwest along Asakusa-dori about 400 metres to the Kikuyabashi crossing, which is the southern end of the street. Turn north into Kappabashi-dori; the shops then run without a break for 850 metres to the Kinryusho crossing on Kototoi-dori.