Chugoku & Shikoku: when the hardest tables open reservations
Release days, booking channels and phone-line hours for 23 hard-to-book restaurants in Chugoku & Shikoku — checked monthly by a Tokyo reservation desk.
23 houses · Phone, in Japanese 8 houses · Monthly 1 house
Phone, in JapaneseThe line only a Japanese speaker can work — this is where our desk earns its fee.
PlatformA Japanese booking platform (OMAKASE, TableCheck, Pocket Concierge, Ikyu).
OnlineThe house's own web form or major sites.
No reservationsQueue or name list on the day.
Introduction onlyRegulars and their guests only; no public book.
OMAKASE, TableCheck, Pocket Concierge and Ikyu are Japanese booking apps; most need a Japanese phone number or card. "In our collection" marks houses with a full profile on this site.
Next release days
Thursday, October 11 house
1Oct12:00 JST
Soushi壮士
Naka-ku, Hiroshima
For dates in December 2026
OMAKASE only; no phone bookings. Slots for two months ahead open on the 1st at 12:00, limited to one booking per two-month period. Use the vacancy alert.
Phone only, answered Fri–Sun 16:00–18:00, accepting dates from three months ahead. Open just three days a week, so call the first window your date becomes eligible.
Legendary 10-seat counter open only Friday dinner and Sat/Sun lunch and dinner. Cancel 4+ days ahead or pay in full; cash only.
Phone, fully reservation-based. The winter matsuba-crab book (from 6 November) is the prize — reports put waits at six months to a year, so call the spring before.
Michelin two-star crab specialist, 15 seats. Peak-season crab courses reach ¥165,000 per person; winter weekends are the first to go.
☎ Phone answered in Japanese only; one seating at 18:30 (closed Sun, holidays, Golden Week, Obon, New Year)
Phone in Japanese, plus a trickle of online slots. No release day — one 18:30 seating of fourteen; cancellations inside two days are charged, same-day in full.
Fourteen seats, one 18:30 seating; a limited stream of seats reaches an online platform. Cancellation within two days charged, same-day 100%.
Phone only (083-245-0051), in Japanese. No release day — same-day sometimes works, but book ahead for a set date, a garden room or the full wild-fugu course.
Same-day is sometimes possible; eleven private rooms (2–60 guests) argue for booking ahead.
OMAKASE only; no phone bookings. Slots for two months ahead open on the 1st at 12:00, limited to one booking per two-month period. Use the vacancy alert.
Widely called the hardest sushi seat in the Chugoku region. Set the OMAKASE vacancy alert; cancellations do surface.
Online via Ikyu or PayPay Gourmet, no fixed release. Nine seats from 18:00, closed Sundays — book a few weeks ahead.
Tabelog Award-nominated dashi-driven kappo, 9 counter seats, cash only. English-speaking staff noted on Ikyu; cancellation 50% from 2 days, 100% from the day before.
No dinner reservations — leave your name and phone at the desk and they call you back. Weekend waits run one to two hours; come before 17:00 or on a weekday.
Kagawa's bone-in chicken institution. Dinner from 17:00 is walk-in with a call-back waitlist; reported waits 40 minutes to 2 hours on weekends. Oyadori about ¥1,060.
Online only, via the Japanese-language OMAKASE platform; no published release day. Eight seats in two seatings, with cancellation fees from seven days out.
Eight seats in two fixed seatings; 50% fee from seven days out, 100% from three. Seat released if 30 minutes late.
No reservations — self-service queue. Open 9:00–13:30, closed Wednesday and Sunday, and it shuts when the day's noodles are gone; arrive before 11:00.
Birthplace of kamatama, self-service, cash only. 9:00–13:30 Mon/Tue/Thu–Sat; closes early when the noodles run out. Weekend and holiday waits of an hour or more are routine.
OMAKASE platform. Seats are released on omakase.in without a published day — set an alert and hold several candidate dates; also listed on Ikyu.
Okayama's only Michelin two-star sushi. 8 counter seats, single 18:00 start, cash only, omakase about ¥29,700. Cancellation 50% from 3 days, 100% from the day before.
One email at the end of each month: next month's reservation release days for Japan's hardest tables — which phone lines open on the 1st, at what hour — plus what comes into season. No noise; unsubscribe anytime.
Rules are verified against official notices and platform listings and re-checked monthly. Houses change their systems without warning; treat the calendar as a planning tool and let us confirm the specifics for your dates.