This Tokyo neighbourhood is one of the coolest places you’ll ever visit

It was around the time I saw the portly bloke in the three-piece suit and Mardi Gras beads blowing a whistle, holding a tiny rainbow parasol and sassily leading a New Orleans-style brass band through the streets that I decided Shimokitazawa in Tokyo was the coolest place I’d visited in a long time.

Shimokitazawa is Tokyo’s coolest neighbourhood, and the seventh coolest in the world (according to Time Out).Credit: Alamy

It turns out I’m not alone in that assessment. In Time Out’s most recent list of the 10 hippest neighbourhoods in the world, Shimokitazawa came in at number seven.

Bohemian, laid-back and walkable, it’s just one station away from Shibuya and two stations from Shinjuku on express trains. And yet, with its narrow streets that discourage traffic and encourage pedestrians to slow down and wander, it feels a world away from the neon, the noise and the crowds.

I begin my two days in the neighbourhood at Brooklyn Roasting Company (brooklynroasting.com), a high-ceilinged, industrial-chic cafe that feels like it has been transplanted from the Williamsburg waterfront in Brooklyn. It also does a killer cortado, a range of baked goods and American diner-style food. The cafe sits at the end of Mikan Shimokita, one of a handful of relatively new commercial indoor/outdoor shopping-and-eating hubs in the area, including Bonus Track and Tefu Lounge.

Brooklyn Roasting Company feels like it has been transplanted from the Williamsburg waterfront in Brooklyn.Credit: iStock

At a nearby complex called Reload there’s a collection of businesses so hipster-friendly you can feel yourself growing a curly moustache and gaining tattoos on your arms just reading them – body maintenance studio, wellness cafe, vegan bakery, coffee laboratory. Also here is the Mustard Hotel, a modern, minimalist 60-room hotel with a popular bagel cafe in the lobby and a turntable in every room, with vinyl records available to borrow at the front desk.

Shimokitazawa has been synonymous with vintage and thrift stores since after World War II, and their number has only increased. These stores are invariably well curated and the clothes are high quality. I soon lose count of the number of places I wander into, only to emerge in a daze with my credit card dented and a bag containing yet another purchase. Highlights include Flamingo, Dylan, Chicago, New York Joe and Shimokita Garage Department, which houses about 20 separate sellers.

There is an endless supply of thrift stores selling high-quality second-hand clothes and accessories.Credit: Alamy

There’s also a weekend outdoor flea market near the railway station, where sellers set up racks of clothes and fold-out tables piled with knick-knacks, toys and vinyl records.

And speaking of vinyl, Shimokitazawa is renowned as a record store haven. Flash Disc Ranch is an old-school place overseen by a grey ponytailed, Fu Manchu-moustachioed, chain-smoking dude who will expertly direct you to what you want in his vast loft of vinyl delights.

Jet Set (jetsetrecords.net), on the other hand, is a sleek, bright, modern store hidden away on the fourth floor of a non-descript building and accessed by a tiny elevator. The owner, a friendly guy in a pork pie hat, spots my Teenage Fanclub T-shirt and plays me a selection of Japanese indie rock, including several discs I’ll end up buying and loving, by bands such as No Buses and Sunny Day Service.

Shimokitazawa is renowned as a record store haven.Credit: Alamy

One place that really embodies the bohemian spirit of the area is City Country City, opened in 2006 by musician Keiichi Sokabe. This is a combination cafe/bar/record store/music club. Oh, and it serves great spaghetti too. Over a late-afternoon beer I chat with bartender Kanki Hirabayashi, who talks about how Shimokitazawa had developed.

“In the ’70s this area was well known for its theatre scene,” he says. “Since the ’90s a lot of musicians and young people moved here. There are around 15 record stores and a number of live houses in the neighbourhood.

“But Shimokitazawa has changed too. It’s a lot more crowded, it gets more tourists and, in my opinion, there are too many vintage clothes stores. But it still has that spirit that attracts young people and that will always mean it has that alternative edge to it.”

Indeed, as Hirabayashi says, Tokyo’s theatre scene was born and bred here and still thrives in places like the Honda Theater, Theater 711 and Off Off Theater. And when he refers to live houses, he’s using the term the Japanese have for small music venues.

On my second day in Shimokitazawa I head to Shelter, a basement live house, to check out three young Tokyo independent bands. Before the show I get talking to the guy on the merch stand and it turns out he’s the frontman of the headlining group, Eupholks. He’s polite and quietly spoken and tells me what to expect from the other bands – Lighters are female-fronted Breeders-like rock; the Wisely Brothers are three women who make lush, atmospheric music. By the time he gets on stage, he’s transformed into a mesmerising vocalist who sounds like a cross between Prince and Thom Yorke.

As it’s an afternoon show, afterwards I head to Flipper’s and join the queue. There’s a line because the pancakes here are renowned and a thing of beauty – puffy, light, souffle-like creations that melt in your mouth and come with fresh cream and fruit.

You’re spoilt for choice in the food department in Shimokitazawa and over a couple of days I inhale ramen, yakitori, gyoza and the area’s specialty, curry, which is such a big thing here that there is an annual curry festival. A few of the most popular curry joints are Nan Station, Ponipirica, Rojiura Curry Samurai and Magic Spice.

Part of the joy of this walkable neighbourhood is to become a flaneur and just wander without purpose, as you invariably stumble across something interesting. In the space of an hour or two I found the following: Sansato (sansato.jp), a cottage-like gift store with knick-knacks, toys, cards, art prints, stationery and rubber stamps in a number of small rooms you explore by climbing a staircase; Gallery Hana (g-hana.jp), a sweet little art gallery that has new exhibits by local artists every few weeks (the day I visited I got to meet artist Masako Kobayashi, who made intricately cut paper sculptures out of the pages of famous books); Shirohige’s Cream Puff Factory, a bakery that specialises in choux cream pastries in the shape of the beloved title character from the Studio Ghibli film My Neighbour Totoro.

To properly enjoy Shimokitazawa, wander without purpose.Credit: japanjourneys.jps

At one point I pass a place called Lady Jane and drop in. It’s one of Tokyo’s so called “jazz kissaten”, cafe/bars devoted to listening to records. Lady Jane is a bit of an institution that has been here since the mid-’70s. I order a beer and take in the dark, woody atmosphere, the classic film posters, and the shelves of vinyl and the bartender asks if I have any requests. It’s a strictly jazz bar, and I happened to have written about the saxophonist Sonny Rollins in my novel Driving Stevie Fracasso, so I ask if he has the 1962 album The Bridge.

“Of course,” he says, walking to the collection, finding the disc and putting it on. A couple of minutes later he gently deposits a stack of about 20 Sonny Rollins albums on the bar in front of me, “in case you can find something else of his you’d like to hear”. I could get used to a place like this.

While in Tokyo I’ve been reading Moshi Moshi, the 2010 novel by Banana Yoshimoto, that is set in Shimokitazawa. In the author’s note at the end she bemoans the fact that the neighbourhood she celebrated in the book is changing and that the independent, quirky businesses are dying out.

“The way things are going,” she wrote, “there will be less and less space for individuals to find their niche within a community, and less and less leeway for people to live at a pace that suits them.”

I read that sentence over lunch – a plate of dumplings and a beer. Then I pay my bill, walk out into the street and hear a noise. Music. I follow the sound, turn a corner and there he is – the guy with the whistle, the Mardi Gras beads and the rainbow parasol, leading the brass band down the street.

And that’s when I smile and think perhaps Yoshimoto is wrong, and Shimokitazawa still has space for individuals and is still a place with a beating heart. At least, on that hot summer afternoon as I watch the band pass by, it certainly seems that way.

The writer travelled with assistance from Fender Australia.

THE DETAILS

FLY
Qantas, ANA, JAL and Jetstar fly from Australia to Tokyo. ANA reinstated its direct flights from Perth to Tokyo last October.

STAY
The Mustard Hotel (mustardhotel.com) is a hip, minimalist, budget-friendly hotel that opened in 2021. Room and breakfast from $315. See mustardhotel.com