Jimbocho is Tokyo's book town, with antiquarian and secondhand shops lined up along Yasukuni-dori, and one of its great curry districts. Browse Isseido, Komiyama and Kitazawa, then break for curry at Bondy, Kyoeido or Ethiopia.
Jimbocho (Jinbōchō), in Kanda, is where Tokyo's books are: about 130 bookshops by the neighbourhood's own count, many of them antiquarian and secondhand dealers lined up along Yasukuni-dori. They sell everything from art books and photobooks to classical Japanese bound books and English first editions. It's also one of Tokyo's great curry districts, and the committee behind the Kanda Curry Grand Prix counts more than 400 places serving curry across Kanda.
The short version: come Monday to Saturday, because Isseido and Kitazawa close on Sundays and holidays, and Komiyama closes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays for now. Browse from late morning (most shops open between 10am and noon), eat curry for lunch at Bondy, Kyoeido or Ethiopia, and leave room for a second curry shop if you're doing the stamp rally.
It's a short ride from the centre, so it fits around an afternoon in Ueno or Akihabara. For the rest of the city see things to do in Tokyo, and for more cheap lunches, cheap eats in Tokyo.
The bookshops
Jimbocho's book street runs along Yasukuni-dori, with more shops in the side streets. Most dealers specialise, so it pays to know what you're after; Booktown Jimbou, the official site, lets you search about 130 shops by genre and has a downloadable shop map in English.
Isseido is the one I'd start with: a serious antiquarian bookseller with Japanese books, Western books and classical Japanese bound books (wahon), and an export department for overseas buyers. Even if you aren't buying, it shows you what a top Tokyo dealer keeps. Open: Monday to Saturday, 10am to 6:30pm. Closed: Sundays and public holidays. The catch: it's a working dealer, not a souvenir shop, so handle things with care and ask before photographing.
Its stock covers Japanese books, Western books and classical Japanese bound books (wahon). It has an export department for overseas buyers.
Close by, Komiyama Shoten is the shop for photobooks, contemporary art and art books, and it also buys and sells artworks; it exhibits at art-book fairs such as T3 Photo Asia. Its own shop page says it's running shorter hours for now: Thursday to Monday, noon to 6:30pm (Sundays and holidays to 5:30pm), closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
The place for photobooks, contemporary art and art books. It also buys and sells artworks.
If you read English, Kitazawa Bookstore, on the second floor of the Kitazawa Building, has dealt in English-language antiquarian and rare books since 1902, first editions and signed copies among them. Open: noon to 5pm. Closed: Sundays and national holidays. The shop asks you to handle books with care, put them back where you found them, keep your voice down and take no photos or videos inside.
No photos or videos inside, and the shop asks for quiet. Book House Cafe is on the ground floor of the same building.
On the ground floor of the same building, Book House Cafe is a picture-book shop with more than 10,000 picture books and a café in the middle, and it runs original-artwork shows and events. It's the easiest stop in Jimbocho with children, and unlike the dealers above it opens every day. Bookshop: 11am to 6pm. Café: 11am to 5:30pm on weekdays (last order 5pm), to 6pm at weekends and on holidays. It closes over New Year, and some evenings the central sofa seats are booked for events.
When: the book street holds two big fairs. The Kanda Furuhon Matsuri (Kanda Used Book Festival), with stalls along Yasukuni-dori, ran for the 66th time from 23 October to 1 November 2026; it's held every autumn around the end of October, and the 2027 dates aren't announced yet. In spring, the street held a used-book fair during Chiyoda's cherry blossom festival, from 16 to 19 April 2026.
The central sofa seats and gallery are sometimes closed for booked events; the shop's site lists them.
The curry
Japanese curry in Tokyo comes in a few styles, and Jimbocho has the classic examples of two of them within a few minutes of each other. Bondy is the one I'd go to first, for European-style curry (ōfū karē), founded in 1973 by Koichi Murata, who learned French sauce-making in a friend's restaurant in France and built his curry on a brown sauce, with plenty of dairy and a chutney of apples, other fruit and onions slow-fried in butter and reduced in red wine. Its site describes the result as sweet with the heat hidden inside.
The menu: beef, chicken, pork, cheese, vegetable, shrimp, clam, mushroom, seafood and mixed curries, a children's curry, and oyster curry in winter only, with cheese, extra potatoes and extra rice as add-ons. Cost: its menu page lists beef, chicken, pork and most other curries at ¥1,800, the mixed, mushroom, seafood and oyster curries at ¥1,950 and the children's curry at ¥1,450; Bondy raised its prices from mid-May 2026, so check the menu when you sit down. Open: from 11am on weekdays and from 10am or 10:30am at weekends and on holidays, to 9:30pm or 10pm (Bondy's own pages give both), with last orders by 9:30pm.
Getting there: it's on the second floor of the Kanda Kosho Center building, and the entrance is round the back, not on the Yasukuni-dori side; Bondy asks you not to go in from the front.
The entrance is at the back of the Kanda Kosho Center building, not on the Yasukuni-dori side.
Kyoeido has served 'Sumatra curry' since 1924. The shop says it learned how curry was made on Sumatra from Ito Tomojiro, who travelled widely in South-East Asia in the late Meiji era, and adapted it for Japanese tastes. The sauce is almost black: no wheat flour, more than 20 spices fried for an hour, and vegetables simmered for hours until they disappear, so it's thin rather than thick but deep in flavour. It also makes a corn-based vegetable potage.
Cost: pork curry ¥1,300, chicken ¥1,500, shrimp ¥1,600, beef ¥1,700 and tongue ¥2,200 (an extra-large serving of sauce is ¥300 more). From October to early May it also bakes about 30 whole apples a day, served with cream, for ¥700, from 2pm on weekdays and 11am on Saturdays and holidays; you can't order the apple on its own. Open: 11am to 8pm, last order 7:45pm. Closed: Sundays and some public holidays. It's in the basement of the Sun Building, close to Jimbocho Station.
The winter baked apple is sold from 2pm on weekdays and 11am on Saturdays and holidays, about 30 a day, and not on its own.
On the Ochanomizu side, Ethiopia is a curry rice specialist (its site gives 1988 as its start). Its most popular dish is the chicken curry, with large pieces of chicken; there are also beef, vegetable, shrimp and bean curries, and the bean ones start at '3x' heat, in a thin, spicy sauce. Open: every day, 11am to 10:30pm on the ground floor Monday to Saturday (last order 10pm) and to 9pm on Sundays and holidays (last order 8:30pm); the upstairs (2F) room closes earlier, at 9:30pm and 8:30pm. It doesn't publish menu prices online. It's 5 minutes from JR Ochanomizu or Jimbocho Station.
For more noodle and cutlet lunches in Jimbocho, Udon Maruka is on our best udon in Tokyo page and Ponchiken, the old-style katsuretsu shop, is on the best tonkatsu in Tokyo.
5 minutes from JR Ochanomizu or Jimbocho Station. The bean curries start at '3x' heat.
Kanda's curry shops run a stamp rally every year. The 2026 one runs from 1 August to 20 December 2026, with 152 curry shops taking part, the most yet. Pick up the free Kanda Curry Town Official Guidebook 2026 (while stocks last) or use the smartphone version on the official site, eat curry at participating shops to collect stamps, and add stamps from points at Jimbocho bookshops and local stations. Ten shops' stamps earn a 'buddy' card; enough shops and stamp points (42 or more in total) earn a Kanda Curry Meister award.
The Kanda Curry Grand Prix final is the area's curry festival. The 14th was held on 31 October and 1 November 2026 at Ogawa Hiroba in Kanda Ogawamachi: about 38,500 people came, 20 shops competed, and Curry Shop C&C Akihabara won. The 2027 date hasn't been announced yet.
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Come Monday to Saturday, when every shop above is open except Komiyama on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. 10:30. Isseido (open from 10am), then walk west along Yasukuni-dori. 11:45. Curry for lunch, ahead of the noon rush: Bondy (entrance round the back) for European-style, or Kyoeido for Sumatra curry. 12:45. Komiyama for photobooks and art (Thursday to Monday). 13:30. Kitazawa upstairs for English books, then Book House Cafe downstairs for a coffee. 15:00. Ethiopia for a second curry if you're collecting stamps, then walk 5 minutes to JR Ochanomizu.
Jimbocho is three subway lines from the rest of the city: the Toei Mita and Shinjuku lines and the Tokyo Metro Hanzomon Line. For IC cards and subway passes, see getting around Tokyo. To join it to a museum day, Ueno is a short ride north; for old-Tokyo streets on foot, see Yanaka.
Sundays: many antiquarian dealers, including Isseido and Kitazawa, close on Sundays and public holidays, so a weekday or Saturday is far better for the bookshops. The curry houses are the opposite: Bondy and Ethiopia open every day, Kyoeido closes on Sundays.
Manners: these are working shops with valuable stock. Ask before photographing (Kitazawa bans it), put books back where they were, and leave big bags or wet umbrellas at the door if asked.
Souvenirs: old prints, maps and postcards make light presents; for more ideas, see Tokyo souvenirs. Tax-free shopping in Japan is now a refund system (since 1 November 2026, for purchases of ¥5,000 or more before tax), so ask a shop before assuming it takes part.
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