The Best Japanese Restaurants in Mexico City (2026)
Mexico City's Japanese scene runs deeper than visitors expect, from a 1970 institution in Del Valle to fourteen-seat omakase counters in Roma. The nine rooms we carry, and which one to book.
Mexico City has one of the oldest and least discussed Japanese dining scenes in the Americas. The first Japanese restaurant here did not arrive as a franchise from Los Angeles or London in the last ten years. It opened in Del Valle in September 1970, and it was the first restaurant the Suntory group ever built, in Japan or anywhere else. Everything that followed grew on top of that: the Polanco landmark houses, the fourteen-seat counters in Roma Norte, the nikkei rooms with a sound system.
What keeps the scene serious is the sourcing. Fish arrives from Ensenada and both Mexican coasts alongside imports from Japan, Spain, Iceland, Scotland and Alaska, so the counters here work with material that a city more than 2,200 metres above sea level has no business seeing. The city splits into four kinds of Japanese room - the old institutions, the small omakase counters, the nikkei scene rooms, and the modern izakaya-style bars that stay open past midnight - and knowing which one you want is most of the booking decision.
These are the nine Japanese restaurants MyRSVP carries in Mexico City.
Suntory: the oldest Japanese house in the country
Suntory opened on Torres Adalid in Del Valle in September 1970 and has been run as an embassy for Japanese cooking ever since, which is why it has become shorthand in Mexico City for old-money dinners that never date. The property is a compound rather than a single dining room: teppanyaki counters that cook in front of you, a separate sushi bar, shabu shabu brought to the table, private Japanese-style rooms behind sliding doors, and a garden running through the middle of it. A bar with live piano handles the aperitif. Tables regularly seat three generations of the same family ordering exactly what they ordered thirty years ago. Teppanyaki counters and tatami rooms are limited, so ask for them by name when you book.
Tori Tori: the reference name in Polanco
Tori Tori started in 1995 when Dr. Katsumi Kumoto Kawasaki opened a small room in Ciudad Satelite serving mostly chicken, which is what tori means. Three decades later it is the reference Japanese name in the city, and the Temistocles house in Polanco is its landmark: a steel lattice facade by Michel Rojkind wrapped in vegetation, interiors by Esrawe Studio, and a terrace-garden that made the building famous when it opened in 2011. The flagship reopened in July 2026 after a renovation that pushed the terrace out toward the street and installed chef Marcelo Hisaki at the pass, cooking a fresher, freer contemporary Japanese menu that leans hard on Mexican fish. The house repertoire of rolls, chirashi, shabu shabu and teppanyaki holds behind it. Terrace-garden tables go first on weekend evenings.
Rokai: the counter the chefs go to
Rokai is a small kappo-style counter on Rio Ebro in Colonia Cuauhtemoc and one of the founding rooms of the Edo Kobayashi Group. It has been running long enough to have trained a large share of the city's Japanese cooking talent, and it is still the address locals name first when the subject is sushi in Mexico City. Sit at a table and you order a la carte - nigiri, sashimi, temaki, grilled and fried plates, udon. Sit at the counter and you hand the decision to the chef, who works the day's fish in sequence with the rice, cures and cuts adjusted piece by piece. The room is plain and deliberately undesigned, and nothing about it announces itself from the street. There are only a few counter seats per service, so request them explicitly.
Hotaru Arcos: the speakeasy sushi bar
Hotaru Arcos is the branch Grupo Costeno itself labels the Speakeasy - a dark, intimate room inside Arcos Bosques in Bosques de las Lomas, set apart from the mall traffic and built around the counter rather than the tables. The buying list is the argument: fish and shellfish from Japan, Spain, New Zealand, Iceland, Scotland, Alaska, Canada and both Mexican coasts, handled to show the material rather than bury it. Nigiri is the anchor, with the Tartufo Roll, hamachi sashimi with serrano, kama yaki and short rib taquitos filling out the order. Service starts at one in the afternoon daily and runs to one in the morning on Friday and Saturday. Solo diners are well handled at the counter.
Kill Bill: hi-fi sushi and robata in Roma Norte
Kill Bill is a fourteen-seat sushi and robata counter on Cerrada de Orizaba, and it describes itself as Hi-Fi Sushi and Robata. The idea comes from Tokyo listening bars: a serious sound system, a wall of jazz records, and a house motto that translates as here you eat and you listen. Diners can ask for a record during service. The kitchen works in omakase at three lengths - Kill, Bill and Kill Bill - with the longest adding certified A5 Japanese wagyu and caviar. Fish arrives daily from Ensenada and from suppliers in Japan, and each piece is explained as it lands. The room is dim, small and unfussy, with handmade ceramics commissioned from Mexican artists. It suits couples and pairs far better than large parties, and it fills from Thursday to Sunday.
Ryoshi: dinner and a late night on the same booking
Ryoshi is Grupo Costeno's Japanese restaurant-bar on Masaryk 111, built to work as a serious sushi room and a place people stay past midnight. The layout says as much: a nigiri counter and a robata grill at the centre, a long bar behind them, and a terrace opening onto the avenue. The kitchen leans premium rather than purist, mixing Japanese and Asian technique with Latin American touches, and the sake, whisky and wine lists are the other reason tables turn slowly here. Weekends bring live music to the terrace and the room runs to two in the morning from Wednesday to Saturday, which makes Ryoshi one of the few Polanco addresses where a proper dinner and a late night are the same reservation. Later seatings are usually easier to secure than the first turn.
Senora Tanaka: nikkei, fire and volume
Senora Tanaka landed on Avenida Presidente Masaryk in June 2022 and immediately became one of the loudest and best-looking rooms in Polanco. It is the younger, more carnivorous sibling of Senor Tanaka in Monterrey, and it arrives with rock and roll on the sound system. Interiors by Filipao Nunes are black on black with soft light, a bright sushi bar as the visual anchor and a terrace shaded by orange-leafed vines. The kitchen calls itself nikkei, but the real story is fire: slow cooking, grilling and Japanese technique applied to serious cuts, up to Japanese A5 wagyu. Service runs to one in the morning midweek and two on Friday and Saturday. The terrace is the seat to ask for, and the house regularly runs a waiting list.
Nobu: the Polanco flagship
Nobu sits on Anatole France a block off Masaryk and is the Mexico City flagship of Nobu Matsuhisa's group. The menu is the canon - black cod in miso, yellowtail with jalapeno, tiradito, rock shrimp tempura, new style sashimi - alongside a full sushi list and an omakase for guests who want the kitchen to decide, with sake, Japanese whisky and the group's signature cocktails behind the bar. It is darker and more theatrical than the city's chef-led tasting rooms and keeps a different clock: the kitchen runs to 1 AM Thursday through Saturday, and Sunday is an early service. A second location, Nobu Arcos Bosques, covers the west side of the city.
El Japonez: the going-out ritual
El Japonez has spent more than twenty years turning Japanese food into a Mexico City night out, and the Polanco branch on Emilio Castelar is the one most visitors end up in - a converted house remodelled into a series of rooms and a terrace. The kitchen buys hard, with export-grade bluefin, Ora King salmon from New Zealand and short-grain Japanese rice, and the menu runs from cold and hot starters through nigiri and sashimi to the long roll list that made the group's name, then into robatayaki skewers and a teppanyaki service cooked at your table. It is a fusion house rather than a purist one, the light is low, the bar is busy, and the room runs to one in the morning at the weekend.
Which one to book
For a first serious dinner in the city, Tori Tori or Suntory. For the best fish handled with the least ceremony, Rokai's counter. For a date, Kill Bill or Hotaru Arcos. For a table of six that wants the night to keep going, Senora Tanaka, Ryoshi or El Japonez. Nobu is the safe corporate default and the easiest room to bring a mixed group into.
How MyRSVP books it
Every restaurant and rooftop on MyRSVP books through the venue's own reservation platform, using the booking button on that venue's page - no middle layer, no held inventory, no extra fee. Counter seats, terrace tables, tatami rooms and omakase seatings are limited at most of these addresses, so request them by name when you reserve. Nightlife tables are the exception: club tables in Mexico City are coordinated directly by the MyRSVP concierge.
Build a custom itinerary with the MyRSVP concierge. Pair the venues mentioned above into a single concierge-confirmed evening. See the full Las Vegas events calendar for every upcoming DJ and pool party across the city.
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