Things To Know Before Visiting Tokyo – According To Chef Tim Anderson

“There’s such distractions everywhere, and the city’s so vertical – I never know how I’m not running into people all the time because I’m always looking up,” says Anderson. “Even in a big city like London, everything’s still on street level when you’re walking around – the bars, the restaurants, they just occupy the ground floor. But in Tokyo, it’s everywhere. The bars and restaurants are stacked on top of each other and there’s karaoke places and shops nestled within them, and they go underground.

When visiting, Anderson tends to stay in Shinjuku “which is one of the busiest, craziest areas,” with “over the top stimulus all the time.”

He says: “Living in the middle of Kabukicho, Shinjuku or Shibuya – all these places you see in movies – it seems like: How could you do it? And the answer is, you don’t, you live in some other part of Tokyo.”

“There’s so much to do and so much to buy. People say, ‘Oh, Japan is so expensive,’ but actually, it’s not really expensive, it’s just that you’re constantly spending money because everything is awesome,” says Anderson, almost giddily.

“Everywhere you go there’s something cool to buy, whether it’s a weird flavour of Pepsi, or beautiful traditional Kyoto sweets for tea, I cannot stop spending money when I go to Japan.”

You’ll come back penniless, he says with a laugh: “Absolutely, whatever money you have in your bank account, you will empty it in Tokyo.”