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 small 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 small 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 meters 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, so it has become shorthand in Mexico City for old-money dinners that never date. The property is a compound, not 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 their parents ordered. 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. The flagship reopened 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 izakaya and omakase counter on Rio Ebro in Colonia Cuauhtemoc, part of chef Edo Kobayashi's restaurant 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, ramen. 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 its own group brands as 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, not 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, not bury it. Nigiri is the anchor, with the Tiger Roll, the red dragon roll, hamachi sashimi with serrano and crispy 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 sushi and robata counter on Cerrada de Orizaba in Roma Norte, and it describes itself as Hi-Fi Sushi and Robata. The idea is a listening-bar setup built into the counter, pairing music and food in one room. Guests sit close to the counter, with the fish and the grill both visible as service moves along. It suits couples and smaller groups far better than large parties.
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 kitchen mixes Japanese and Asian technique with Latin American touches across nigiri, entrees and shared plates, and the sake, whisky and wine lists are the other reason tables turn slowly here. The room stays open past midnight most nights, to 1am Tuesday through Thursday and 2am on Friday and 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 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 Arquitectos cross a water-mirror entrance into the dining room, with cherry trees and dried red branches worked into a single-floor space built for a moody, ceremonial mood. The kitchen calls itself nikkei, pairing Japanese technique with Peruvian and Latin flavors, with a full sushi program running alongside it. Service runs to one in the morning midweek and two on Friday and Saturday. It fills early and stays loud into the night.
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, not 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 our Mexico City partner books it
Every restaurant and rooftop in this guide 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 our Mexico City partner.
Build a custom itinerary with our concierge team. 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.
Keep reading
- The Best Restaurants in Mexico City for 2026 · Eighteen of the best restaurants in Mexico City, grouped by the kind of night you are planning, from the two-star tasting rooms to a starred masa counter with no menu.
- The Best Rooftop Bars in Mexico City for 2026 · Twelve Mexico City rooftops sorted by what you actually see from the rail, from the cathedral and the Templo Mayor to the Reforma skyline and the Condesa tree canopy.
- The Best Seafood Restaurants in Mexico City (2026) · A landlocked capital more than 2,200 meters above sea level eats some of the best seafood in the Americas. The ten rooms we carry, led by Contramar, and how to time each one.
- The Best Steakhouses in Mexico City for 2026 · Mexico City has four distinct steak traditions running side by side. Here are the thirteen rooms we carry, sorted by which tradition each one belongs to.
- The Best Tacos in Mexico City for 2026 · The taco experiences in Mexico City worth planning a night around, from the world's first Michelin-starred taqueria to the current one-star taqueria and the masa rooms behind them.
- Mexico City Nightlife Guide (2026) · Mexico City is not a bottle-service city, and pretending otherwise ruins the night. The real luxury evening here is dinner-led: a long table, then a rooftop, then a club table placed by hand.
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