Nishiazabu Shangu

Nishiazabu Shangu (西麻布 香宮) 

⭐⭐⭐⭐

🇭🇰🇨🇳 Chinese / 📍 Nishi-Azabu

📓 Visits: 3 (2025, 2024x2)

Japanese chef Hiroaki Arishima has been cooking Chinese food for over 34 years, perhaps most notably earning Sense at the Mandarin Oriental Tokyo a Michelin Star in 2013.  In 2021 he relaunched Shangu, which was previously located a short distance away in Roppongi.  It was on my radar since then but a Chinese restaurant in Japan open for simultaneous start omakase dinner only at JPY 28,000 ticked all my "no" boxes.  From November 2022 they started lunch service with a choice of two 8-course course menus priced at JPY 5,500 and JPY 8,800.  The 5k lunch was dropped for most of 2024 but eventually brought back.  My three visits have been for lunch.

It's a great space: a super-long counter, windows the length and breadth of the room, carpeted, upholstered chairs, a view of the chefs at work if you're lucky, Nicola Bergman flowers and a Gustav Klimt in the WC.  A private room is available for hire as well. 

The structure of the course was the same on my first two visits but most dishes were substantially different and no two dishes were exactly the same.  My favourite dish was probably the 5th dish on visit #1: fried lettuce with hoshi kaibashira, enoki and oyster sauce.  My least favourite was the wagyu shabu shabu on visit #2.  Ironically, these were, respectively, possibly the cheapest and most expensive dishes of all the dishes I've had at Shangu.  The first an umami bomb of Cantonese-like flavours.  The second, over-refined, the dominant flavours being the taste of marbled beef and an acidic shoyu broth.  The char siu in the three-meat cold starter is probably the weakest of the three meats, but the chicken and pork neck somewhat make up for it.  The last savoury dish is fried Jasmine rice: minced pork on visit #1 and shirasu, umeboshi, shiso and yukari on visit #2 (too Japanese for me second time).  Desserts are made by a specialist pastry chef who previously worked at Pièce Montée in Ginza.  A Dekopon, white chocolate, custard and biscuit tart on visit #1 was superb.  Less to my preference was a mango pudding on visit #2 but it was high quality, large and had a surprise element of coconut mousse.  Both meals ended with tea and a take on a warm Taiwanese castella.  I wasn't expecting desserts of this quality in a Chinese restaurant.

Menus are presented in Chinese, Japanese and English.  Chef Arishima can speak a few words of English but on visit #1 the restaurant manager had excellent English and was able to properly introduce all the dishes.  On visit #2 it was someone else who had very little English.  Annoyingly, the chef resorted to attempting to introduce each dish again, sometimes once I'd already started eating it.  Worse than that, the restaurant was less busy second time and both the chef and waiter were watching me while I ate.  The chef wanted feedback on every dish, at one point almost standing over me until I tasted the next dish.
The drinks menu is in Japanese only.  There is a choice of around nine teas at JPY 2,000 each.  The tea is served in a pot which will be kept warm on a burner on your table and refilled with boiling water when you run out.

Visit #3 was a year and a half later.  As ever the quality of cooking was excellent: the sweet and sour sauce the scallops were served in was plate-licking and nothing like the "edible" cold slime you get in cheaper places.  A large portion of winter melon, crab and egg white soup, full of flavour and completely satisfying.  A large piece of piping-hot tai, served with a blend of three kinds of soy sauce and another banger.  Tantanmen was aromatic.  I don't really care for tantanmen but when it's refined as this is I do.  Either because he was busier or didn't remember me there was no staring from the chef this time as well.  On the downside the cold starter of jellyfish just tasted of flowers (daylily) and the "mont blanc" dessert was fine but underwhelming.  Moreover, apart from a bit of mince in the tantanmen there was no meat in the entire course.  But most of all, two savoury dishes had been eliminated from the course and no petit four (and no tea?) was served.  I said before you should "go before the 5k lunch disappears again" but it seems like rather than dropping this course it's just a lot less value for money. 

I've retained my score for now.  Shangu is one of a handful of places I'd eat Chinese food in in Japan.  I would probably still go back but if I do it will need to be for the 8k lunch now.  Shangu was added to the Michelin Guide 2026 but only as a "Selected" restaurant, which feels a bit mean to me.  The cooking is of a higher standard than 1-Star Series, for example.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1307/A130703/13260412/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.1

📱 Booking: 🟩 Lunch by 3pm a day in advance via Tabelog, ResReserve, Pocket Concierge, Ikyu or phone.  English Spoken.

📍 Location: 

2F Parkside Sepia, 3-13-10 Nishi-Azabu.  2F multi-tenant building.  7 mins north from Hiroo station Exit 3.

Map data ©2024 Google

📅 Visit October 2025

🕛 Lunch 5,000

Chilled Jelly Fish with Assorted Vegetables
Stir-fried Scallops with Sweet and Sour Sauce
Winter Melon Soup with Crab Meat and Egg White
Steamed Fillet of Sea Bream with Oriental Fish Soy Sauce
Chilled Noodles with Soy Milk Sauce and Braised Minced Pork Meat
SHANGU Pastry Chef's Special Dessert

💴 Damage: 7,500 (5500 + tea @2k)

⏱️ Time taken: 1h15m

📅 Visit May 2024

🕛 Lunch 8,500

Chilled Firefly Squid and Jelly Fish with Leek Sauce
Deep-fried Battered Prawn with Sakura Shrimp Powder and Salt
Two Kinds of Barbecued Meat and Cold Chicken
Double-boiled Clear Broth Soup with Shark's Fin and Assorted Vegetables
Stir-fried Lettuce with Crab Meat and its Roe Sauce
Poached Sliced Japanese Beef with Original Oriental Soy Sauce Shabu Shabu-Style
Fried Jasmine Rice with Boiled Whitebait and Crunchy Pickled Plum
SHANGU Pastry Chef's Special Dessert and Chinese Petit Fours

💴 Damage: 10,800 (8800 + tea @2k)

⏱️ Time taken: 1h10m

📅 Visit February 2024

🕛 Lunch 5,500

Cool Sea Tetsuhachi Claw Fish, Cold Grilled Water Octopus and Jellyfish Head, Seasonal Vegetables with Spicy Sauce
Deep fried New Caledonia angel shrimp with spicy salt and baby leaves
Homemade grilled char siu, pork belly, and cold chicken with scallion sauce - 3-piece set
Shark fin with golden strips and snow crab meat, turnip soup with egg white
Stir-fried lettuce with dried scallops and enoki mushrooms in oyster sauce
Cantonese-style steamed chicken, sausage, shiitake mushrooms and bamboo shoots with oriental soy sauce
Fried rice with minced pork, mustard greens and olive leaves in oil
SHANGU Pastry Chef's Special Dessert and Chinese Petit Fours

💴 Damage: 7,500 (5500 + tea @2k)

⏱️ Time taken: 1h20m