pizza marumo — Restaurant in Tokyo

First visit to Pizza Marumo on Saturday April 12th, 2025. They are ranked #14 in "The Best Pizza Chefs in the World Top 100" 2024, as well as #3 best pizza in the World by TimeOut, therefore reservations are a MUST. I had to make ours 1 month in advance so you know, but we had a large party of 6, so if you have a smaller group, you should be able to secure a reservation quicker. I made my reservation using the online service "Tablecheck.com".

We arrived promptly at our 5pm time slot, eager to sample their pizzas, because they only allot you with a 2 hour time period to eat, and we wanted to make sure we had enough time to feast!

The atmosphere inside is very warm and becoming, and has a very comfortable and easy-going feeling to it. There are lots of counter seats in the middle of the restaurant, which many reviewers mentioned was a good choice to sit there so you can watch them make the pizza. They also have 6 tables which they pushed 3 together for us to accommodate our large group. Lastly, they also have some seating outside, that is pet friendly.

We only ordered pizzas this evening, and upon being seated immediately placed an order for a several pizzas to get the party started. The Margherita pizza was the first to arrive, about 15 minutes later. The size seemed small, but they did mention that the pizza pie size is 25cm in diameter, which generally seems to be the size of pizza here in Tokyo. Cheese was noticeably fresh, and tomato sauce very bright, and the crust seemed to be of the "light" variety. Nice char underneath, as well as some on top, but overall kind of soggy, so you will need 2 hands to get the first bite in.

2nd pizza was a cream-based pizza called "Unno Brothers" [ シラスとカラスミ大根 ] which is Whitebait and dried mullet roe with radish. Not a big fan of fish on a pizza, I took a hard pass on that one, but was told it was great!

3rd pizza was "Teriyaki Boys" and is mayo-based. Never had a mayo- based pizza before, so this was a first for me. I was pleasantly surprised- it was pretty good!

Next came the "Little Pepper Bomb"- a tomato-based pizza with some mascarpone cheese, pepper corns, and prosciutto on it. This was very good, and was my favorite of all the pizzas.

We also got a "Romano", which was great and for me had the "freshest" kind of taste to it. The "Quattro Fromaggi" (aka 4 cheese), was super yummy and of course cheesy, and where they provide you fresh honey to pour on your pizza.

Had to try their famous "Japanese Umami", which is a cream-based very "Japanese" tasting pizza. This is kind of fishy so order this one for sure if that floats your boat.

We then got a "PJ", another cream-based pizza that has clams on it. This was excellent and we would have ordered another pie if we had larger stomachs.

The final pizza was "Red Hot Chili" and I must have eaten half of this pie by myself. On the pizza is "spicy salami" and even the pizza name sounds kinda hot, but honestly it was not too spicy at all. The predominant flavor was paprika, which I don't have a problem with, so I liked this pizza too.

After all that was said and done, we ate 11 pizzas in total. 3 Margherita pizzas, and the rest were some very interesting and yummy combinations! Overall, everyone enjoyed this very memorable and tasty meal. The service staff was top notch, super friendly, and kept filling up our water glasses like a million times (sorry and thanks again!) Chef Yuki Motokura also stopped by too and chatted with us for a bit, and we were able to tell him how great and enjoyable his pizzas were. But I suspect he has heard this from everyone for a long while now 🙂

Thank you for a...

On a quest to find the best neapolitan pizza in Tokyo, Pizza Marumo was next on the list and was not disappointed. Reservations can be easily made on tablecheck.

As with all of our reservations in Japan, we always arrive 10-15 mins ahead of the reservation (out of respect) and we're seated immediately at the counter. It was amazing watching the staff make and finish the pizzas.

We started the meal with a caprese salad which had some seriously sweet tomatoes and awesome mozzarella cheese. Highly recommend this appetizer. The other appetizers we ordered were the avocado focaccia bread and the oven charred cauliflower. Both were awesome though I wasn't a fan of the garlic and anchovy sauce (glad we asked for that on the side).

The first pizza we ordered was a 1/2 margherita and 1/2 marinara. Was amazed at how great the marinara tasted (likely due to the thinly sliced garlic). The pizza dough was flavorful and had a nice char and bite. Would definitely order the marinara the next time we dine here. The second pizza we ordered was the red hot chili. Again loved the balance of flavors throughout this pizza and especially loved the perfectly charred crust.

Ended the meal with their tiramisu which was the perfect ending. The chopped pistachios added a unique flavor twist and texture. The lady fingers were soaked with the perfect amount of coffee and liquor.

Probably my favorite neapolitan pizza thus far in Tokyo and would make an effort to come back in future trips...

As Italians, we really don’t understand the hype, nor how it’s possible for them to be so high in rankings. There are many good pizza places in Japan, and this one is one of the most popular ones, featured in rankings, super hard to book. We have tried a great deal of Napoli-style pizzerie around here, and we were sorry to be disappointed by this one after waiting 2 months for our appointment. Their pizzas sound really good on the menu, unusual ingredients paired together for a Japanese-Italian fusion concept. So we went for 2 of those (Japanese Umami, and Lamb and Harissa), and 1 more classic one, tomato-based with prosciutto.

•Firstly, where are the flavors? The description on the menu promises lots of things, but we couldn’t taste 2/3s of the ingredients, which were also scarce on the pizza. Although to be fair, so many of those ingredients with bold flavors all together does sound like a risky choice. There’s so much that you don’t taste anything. So if you do go, we recommend a more classic one. •Secondly, the dough dries out fast. That’s a huge problem. When you start wanting to leave the crust, it’s a big indication of not a very high quality dough.

We’re very sorry we didn’t love it, but considering the hype, the rankings, the price, and the wait of 2 months, this pizza is very far from being in our top 10 in Tokyo-Kanagawa.

It makes us sad to leave bad reviews and we rarely do. Maybe it was a bad day...