Tokyo's everyday curry rice: a thick, mildly spiced brown gravy with beef or pork chunks, soft onion and potato, ladled over short-grain Japanese rice and topped with fukujinzuke pickle.
Curry rice entered Japan in the late 19th century through British naval recipes; the Imperial Japanese Navy adopted it as the standard Saturday lunch on warships in 1908 and the dish spread through dockyard towns to the rest of the country. Tokyo's CoCo Ichibanya chain (founded 1978) standardised the modern format with multi-level spice grading and a 12-page topping menu; the chain now has over 1,300 locations. Tokyo also has specialty curry-rice rooms (kare-ya) that have nothing to do with chains: thicker, darker, deeper-roux versions from neighbourhoods like Kanda and Jimbocho.
1 editor pick for Japanese Curry Rice (Kare Raisu) in Tokyo, ranked by editorial score. All Tokyo signature dishes · Japanese Curry Rice (Kare Raisu) across every city.