Yakiniku Lee-en Nakano

There’s no shortage of yakiniku restaurants in Nakano — west Tokyo’s haven for anime and manga lovers — but few have lasted as long as Yakiniku Lee-en’s original branch. Having been in business for more than 30 years, Lee-en has built up a loyal customer base over these three-plus decades due to its commitment to serving high-quality wagyu beef in a convenient location, just a single stop from Shinjuku. All meat served at the restaurant is at least A4-grade, ensuring that each piece is finely marbled and mouth-melting. In order to ensure that guests are served only the best, the restaurant features a constantly rotating roster of different cuts and meats, resulting in the restaurant’s most popular item: a curated selection of the restaurant’s five recommended cuts of the day. Cooked to one’s desired doneness and dipped in the restaurant’s homemade sauce, it’s ordered by almost every single visitor to the restaurant, whether they’re newcomers or veterans. With its roots in Korean barbecue, yakiniku in its modern state still bears the mark of several influences from its Korean predecessor. But the chef at Lee-en was so enraptured by Korean cuisine that he decided to devote his career to not just mastering yakiniku, but Korean cuisine as a whole. As such, while the restaurant has come to be known for the tenderness and flavor of its meat, certain dishes like sundubu-jjigae extra-soft tofu soup and the restaurant’s signature naengmyeon cold noodles have propelled its reputation even further. The chef even goes so far as to use ingredients sourced from Korea in his dishes. Nakano has a reputation for being one of west Tokyo’s most popular nightlife spots, and the warm wooden interior of Yakiniku Lee-en lets it fit right in beside the various bars and late-night dining spots. A meal at Lee-en Nakano is a treat for all five senses: surrounded by the sounds and smells of grilling meat, each bite of beef is also wonderfully juicy and flavorful. The ideal place for an outing with friends.