Tempura, in the right hands, is less about the batter than about timing — and few hands are surer than Takeo Shimura's. His eight-seat counter in Shizuoka has become, by wide agreement, the finest tempura room in Japan.
What you eat
An omakase that begins where the fish is landed. Shimura works almost daily with Naoki Maeda of the Sasue Maeda fish shop in Yaizu — the same supplier Tokyo's Narisawa trusts — drawing on Suruga Bay, one of the deepest and most varied fishing grounds in the country. Each piece is treated on its own terms: dehydrated, steamed, fried or seared, the technique bent to the ingredient rather than the reverse.
The counter
Shimura opened Narusei in 2007 and moved it in 2021 to its current eight-seat hinoki counter. He judges doneness by sight, sound and smell, and tests unfamiliar fish with Maeda before they ever reach a guest. A Tabelog Gold restaurant, it sits at the very top of the country's tempura rankings — which is precisely why the seats vanish.
Getting in
Reservation-only, taken by phone in Japanese, and among the hardest tempura counters in Japan to secure from overseas. The room is small, the service singular, and the trip to Shizuoka is part of the point.
