Booking calendar
When Japan's hard-to-book restaurants open reservations
Every hard-to-book house in Japan opens its book on a set trigger — the 1st of the month at 10:00, exactly ninety days ahead, a two-hour phone window. This calendar lists each trigger, verified house by house, so you know the day and the hour in advance.
1,240 houses · 243 by phone · checked Sep 2026
Month view → · SHOKU NOREN Members →
Planning December or January? See which books are already open →
OMAKASE, TableCheck, Pocket Concierge and Ikyu are Japanese booking apps; most need a Japanese phone number or card. "More info" points to Tabelog, Japan's restaurant listing site — hours, menus and photos, not a booking channel. "In our collection" marks houses with a full profile on this site.
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Opening this week
All houses
The trigger is the easy part. The call is ours.
A release day is fought in Japanese, at Japan hours, often over a phone line. Tell us which houses and dates you want and our Tokyo desk dials at the opening minute — ¥6,000 per seat at a house in our collection, ¥12,000 per seat elsewhere, charged only if a seat is actually secured.
Request a tableAbout this calendar
Japan has 1240 houses in this calendar. 243 of them (20%) take reservations only by telephone, in Japanese, and 64 seat guests only through an introduction — together the part of the map that no booking platform can open for you. 830 houses use an online platform (TableCheck 261, OMAKASE 197, Ikyu 110), and 70 take no reservations at all.
The release pattern: 250 houses open their books on a fixed day each month, and 210 of those on the 1st — Komatsu Yasuke, Restaurant Moliere, Ajidocoro among them. 115 houses release seats on a rolling basis a fixed number of days ahead, and 349 simply take bookings as they come. On release mornings the phone-only houses fill within the first hour, so the day and the minute matter more than the month.
What does 'release day' mean for a Japanese restaurant?
Most hard-to-book houses in Japan do not take reservations continuously. They open their book on a fixed trigger — for example the 1st of the month for dates two months ahead, or exactly ninety days before each date — and the month often fills within the first hour.
Why are phone-only restaurants highlighted?
Because they are the seats overseas guests cannot reach: the line is answered in Japanese, during Japanese business hours, and often only for a short window on release day. A Tokyo desk that speaks Japanese and dials at the opening minute changes those odds materially.
Does being in the calendar mean you can book it for me?
It means we know exactly when and how the book opens. You can ask our desk to request any restaurant in Japan: ¥6,000 per seat at a house in our collection, ¥12,000 elsewhere, charged only if we secure the table and you approve it. A few houses accept bookings only in the guest's own name or only by introduction; for those, the page says so plainly and shows how to book yourself, and a free release alert tells you when to act.
All houses in the calendar
One table of every house and its rule →
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. For restaurants in our collection, our desk confirms the specifics for your dates when you request.