Ninja Tokyo — Restaurant in Tokyo

An absolutely amazing experience for our family of four!!

Allow me to highlight the Cons, the Pros and some general info & recommendations from our point of view.

First the Cons:

The elephant in the room is that yes, it is a pricey meal compared to anywhere else we’ve eaten thus far in Tokyo but you are not just paying for the food/service but the experience and ambience as well (including meeting the Grand Ninja)!

When you are seated, you cannot leave and then come back, so they recommend to use the restrooms ahead of time. Our dinner took a little over two full hours for four courses and to meet the Grand Ninja so please plan accordingly.

The reason to you not being allowed to leave & come back is due to having to be escorted through to your table. I won’t go into details to ruin the experience but the reason this is in the Cons section is that it does appear to be a detrimental factor for anyone with reduced mobility due to all the steps. I am sure accommodations can be made to go through a different entrance so please inquire ahead of time if needed.

The Pros:

Finding the place is an adventure in and of itself and adds to the experience of dining in the secretive Ninja society. They have videos on their site with instructions on how do find them.

We were seated in a private room which had such a wonderful atmosphere to help us immerse ourselves in the experience, and for us we had no other table noise or anything to contend with for our conversations.

The food was delicious but what we really enjoyed was the presentation of each dish. Our first course did come to us with small replica (but actual pointy / sharpish) ninja blades so if you have any kids (or adults who act like kids) who you can’t really trust to behave accordingly, keep an extra eye on them if you have a similar dish.

The drink selection was good, and their Ninja Cocktails can be made alcohol free to be inclusive of everyone.

The service and people who work there are nothing short of amazing. Their enthusiasm and politeness is off the charts. After our meal was concluded there were no less than a dozen ninjas who thanked us for dining with them that evening. They are certainly used to tourists and English is not a problem but naturally any phrases you can say in Japanese will go a long way.

The Grand Ninja… What an experience! He was great and our family loved every second of our meeting. No spoilers given here: just enjoy!

General info / recommendations:

We are a family of two adults and two young teenagers (one who is a bit of a picky eater still and even with some courses having things we knew they would not like, no one left hungry).

You need to make a reservation ahead of time.

Watch their video / tutorial to find the place ahead of time if you can.

If you are coming via transit, it will most likely take you through Tokyo Station which around dinner time on a weekday for us was very busy and can be overwhelming. We were already used to how things work by this dinner and recommend that you try to familiarize yourself with the transit system ahead of time prior to making a tight reservation time.

For the reservation it does not help to be too early as they have to escort you and try to time that around all the other tables so checking in only a few minutes ahead of time is all that is needed. We tried checking in 10 minutes early and were asked to come back at our reservation time / they ended up coming to take us in at about 3 minutes prior to the reservation.

Bring a bit of cash if you want to tip. For our family from North America we have been feeling a bit awkward with the not -tipping general policy especially considering all the great service we’ve received in Japan, and when meeting the Grand Ninja there is an opportunity to tip if you wanted (but he doesn’t appear to carry around a debit/credit card machine).

Overall, it was a fantastic experience that our family loved, and we would highly recommend this dining experience to anyone if it is within...

I recently returned from a 2 week trip to Japan and my family is unanimous that Ninja Tokyo was the worst part of the trip and it's not even close. After reading a lot of reviews I decided to book this experience as it seemed like a fun thing to do for my family despite the very high cost. Unfortunately there are not many positive things to say. Other than the atmosphere which was neat and about what I expected, everything else fell short of expectations. Let's start with the food. Below average. 2 adults and 2 kids cost 65,000 yen. For this price I was expecting food that was delicious but it was the worst meal we had during our 2 week trip. I also didn't appreciate being told that everyone at the table had to order a drink despite the fact that the meal was already so expensive. It felt like we were always being upsold. During the meal our server tried 3 separate times to sell our kids a small samurai sword as a souvenir. Even though we would say no thanks he would look at the kids and try to get them to convince us otherwise which was frustrating. Our Ninja server was generally very nice but his grasp of English was very poor which really impacted the experience. It was very hard to understand him particularly when he was explaining the dishes that we were eating. He was also dripping with sweat from running around. My wife said she saw some drip onto her plate. The entire experience felt very orchestrated. There were tables next to us that had been seated earlier and I saw him deliver the same lines that he performed for us later on during our meal. The only other positive thing I would about the experience other than the atmosphere was the magician who was fantastic. His magic using cards was mesmerizing and he spoke English well enough to understand clearly. Overall, I would not recommend this place for the price they charge. We had some of the most amazing meals on our trip at nice restaurants for a fraction...

Went here with high hopes for a fun family night out. It wasn't a complete disaster, but it was close. First off - it was incredibly over-priced. And having lived in Japan for 3 years, I know OVER-PRICED. Even if everything else was good, it would have been a big night out (think 250 AUD for a family of 4 with drinks). Secondly - the food was well below average for Japanese food... to the point that quite a bit of the food was left un-eaten. It wasn't that it was terrible - just wholly uninspiring (and un-Japanese). The service was below-par... we kept on being hit by staff, and at one point my friend was nearly decapitated by a wayward tray being brought into our room. I would say however that the staff were foreigner friendly (more on this later). The most disappointing thing however was the lack of any real Ninja theme... ok... there was some dark entranceways, with some kitcsch along the way - but none of it was even remotely Ninja-like (about the only nod to ninja-lore was the black crackers shaped as shuriken).

We were so disappointed in the lack of any entertainment - until the 'show' started. It was a half decent magic show at our table... which would have been great if we were in a magic restaurant, but seemed completely out-of-place in a Ninja restaurant (and by magic I mean card tricks and ball-n-cup tricks). So IMHO this place was a bust - and even for foreigners (who clearly are the main target) it would have been pretty disappointing. Of course - there's plenty of reviews that were very positive, but I can't help but wonder if they were still jet-lagged, drugged, or just desperate to make the most of it.

My advice - go to a proper Japanese restaurant for some good food at a much...