In shortTempura set inside a seasonal kaiseki course — Two MICHELIN Stars (MICHELIN Guide Japan 2026). Reservations run in Japanese and are hard to place from abroad, so our Tokyo desk requests the table for you, by phone and in Japanese.
Price
Lunch ¥10,000; dinner courses from ¥24,000 (tax and 5% service included; varies with the market)
Sundays and Monday lunch; monthly opening dates posted on the official site
Seats
Counter 10 plus one private room for 2–4
Payment
Cards accepted (Visa, Mastercard, JCB, Amex, Diners); English-site bookings are prepaid by card or PayPal
Getting there
Esaka (Osaka Metro Midosuji Line), about 8 minutes on foot from exit 5
Shunsaiten Tsuchiya is a quiet, renovated house in a residential
street of Suita, fifteen minutes north of Umeda by subway and a short
walk from Esaka Station. The name folds three characters together —
season, colour and tempura — and that is the whole idea: chef
Yukihiko Tsuchisaka, born in Shiga in 1971, trained through Osaka
kitchens, ran a kitchen from twenty‑seven and opened here at
thirty‑seven, in 2008. The house holds Two MICHELIN Stars (MICHELIN
Guide Japan 2026), and Tabelog has named it a
Tempura Hyakumeiten in 2023 and 2025. The house’s own English site
describes it as the only tempura restaurant to have held two stars
every year since 2012; Michelin’s current page confirms the 2024,
2025 and 2026 stars.
What you eat
Tsuchisaka calls tempura “the ultimate heat cooking”: oil temperature
tuned to each ingredient, batter as thin as a veil, and the piece
pulled the instant moisture, umami and aroma balance. Dinner is one
of two courses from ¥24,000, tax and 5% service included and moving
with the market — a tempura kaiseki (appetiser, sashimi, a seasonal
dish, hors d’oeuvres, the tempura sequence, then ten‑cha or ten‑don,
dessert) or a shorter tempura course. Lunch is a ¥10,000 set of eight
tempura pieces around sashimi, a vinegared dish, rice and dessert.
The cellar runs from sake chosen for the frying to Champagne, white
Burgundy and Californian Chardonnay by the glass, half or full bottle.
Groups seated at the private‑room table are served the tempura on
platters rather than piece by piece. A dress code is published on the
English site: no T‑shirts, shorts or sandals, and no strong perfume;
children under six are not seated, and seven‑to‑twelve‑year-olds
only in the private room.
The booking reality
The Japanese book is telephone‑only, on 06‑6338‑2288, and opens
on the 1st of each month from 10:00 for dates up to three months
ahead — the house’s own site states the rule and posts the odd
exception (February 2026 opened on Tuesday 4 November instead of Saturday 1 November; when the 1st is a Sunday it opens the next business day). Visitors
describe the first minutes as a wall of busy signals that clears
after a short wait, and Saturday lunch as the seat that goes first.
Reviewers in 2026 speak of “three months’ wait”, yet also of calling
on release day and being offered a free Saturday lunch. Cancel by the
day before; a same‑day cancellation may be charged. Two things a
foreign visitor should know. First, the house licenses an official
English site, run by My Concierge Japan, that takes requests at least
three days ahead with the course prepaid by card or PayPal, refundable
up to three days out, and cancels the seat if you are more than
fifteen minutes late. Second, it is a request, not a place in the release‑day phone queue, so the most popular dates may already be taken. The release itself is a
Japanese phone call at 10:00 on the 1st, which is what our desk does.
Anyone who wants Osaka’s best‑ranked tempura without a downtown
address, on a day trip north of Umeda; a couple who can plan three
months ahead for a Saturday lunch; and travelers who would rather
have a Japanese speaker place the 10:00 call than prepay a request.
Free release-date alerts: the day before, on the morning of release day (08:00 JST) and about 30 minutes before when the time is known — or a weekly summary if the house opens a little every day.
Shunsaiten Tsuchiya: common questions
Can you book Shunsaiten Tsuchiya from abroad?
Yes, through our Tokyo desk. Japanese bookings by phone only; the book opens on the 1st of each month at 10:00 for dates up to three months ahead. Overseas guests can also send a prepaid request through the official English site, at least three days ahead. We call the restaurant for you, in Japanese, and the ¥6,000-per-seat fee is charged only if we confirm your table — no seat, no fee.
Some of these links are referral links: if you book through them we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. Restaurants never pay us to be listed or ranked. Editorial policy
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