Before refrigeration, Edomae sushi was preservation: fish cured, marinated, simmered, and pressed so it could be eaten safely from a street stall. Bentenyama Miyakozushi has been serving that original canon since 1866, in the lineage of Hanaya Yohei — the man credited with inventing nigiri itself — beside the temple bell tower where it first opened. The fifth master, a historian of sushi, puts it with a grin: "Raw is the fashion now. Our sushi is out of date." The sixth — his top apprentice, not his blood — keeps it that way, deliberately.
What you eat
Vinegar-cured kohada, tuna steeped in soy, conger eel simmered and lacquered with a tare handed down for generations, boiled clam, squid cooked the old way, an omelet folded with shrimp paste. Courses arrive a few pieces at a time on wooden geta stands. The manga Oishinbo — Japan's great food comic — made the fifth master a recurring character; its author is said to head here straight from the airport.
The Noren View
Everyone eats "fresh" sushi in Tokyo. Almost no one eats Edo sushi — the version with two centuries of technique instead of a walk-in fridge. Doing it two minutes from Sensō-ji, at a sixteen-seat family room with a Sunday afternoon service, makes this the easiest profound meal in Asakusa.
Who should go
Sushi eaters ready for the historical deep cut; Asakusa sightseers who want the temple, the bell tower, and the cuisine born beside them in a single afternoon.