Inside the Tsukiji Fish Market
People say “Tsukiji Fish Market” and mean two different places. One of them left in 2018. The other is still here, and it is the one worth a morning.
What stayed, and what left in 2018
The Tokyo Central Wholesale Market traded on this ground from 1935 until 6 October 2018, and moved to Toyosu on 11 October 2018. It took the auctions, the licensed wholesalers and the forklift traffic with it.
What stayed is the Tsukiji Outer Market — in Japanese, Tsukiji Jōgai Shijō, literally the market outside the market. Around around 460 shops, stalls, counters and restaurants that grew up around the wholesale operation to sell to the restaurants that shopped there, and that now sell to anybody. The market says it plainly on its own website: the shops surrounding the central wholesale market remained, and they are the Tsukiji Outer Market.
The Tsukiji Outer Market is a public street. There is no gate, no booth, no admission fee and no queue to skip.
The lanes, block by block
The market fills a rough grid of streets between Tsukiji Hongan-ji and the river, about four blocks by three. The main north-south lane runs under a roof and carries the heaviest footfall; the rows either side are narrower, quieter and where most of the specialists are.
The pattern repeats: raw fish and shellfish nearest the old market site, cooked street food and sit-down counters in the middle blocks, dried goods, knives, tea and kitchenware towards Tsukiji Hongan-ji. Nothing is signed to tell you that, which is most of what a guide is for.
Tsukiji Uogashi — about 60 traders who stayed
Opened on 19 November 2016, two years before the wholesale market left, Tsukiji Uogashi is where about 60 of the old market's intermediate wholesalers now sell. Two three-storey blocks, Odawarabashi and Kaikōbashi, with the market floor at ground level, offices above it and a food court and roof terrace on the third.
It trades 5am to 3pm, with the ground floor open to everyone from 9am. The third floor is the one place in Tsukiji where you can sit down with something you have just bought and eat it looking out over the market, and almost nobody who has not been told about it finds it.
Tsukiji Hongan-ji — an Indian hall by Itō Chūta, 1934
The temple on the market's western edge does not look like a Japanese temple, and that is deliberate. The 1923 earthquake destroyed its predecessor, and Itō Chūta rebuilt it in 1934 in the style of ancient Indian and Asian Buddhist architecture — the stone facade is close to Cave 9 at Ajanta — to say where Buddhism came from before it reached Japan.
Inside is a pipe organ, donated in 1970 to spread Buddhist music, played at a lunchtime recital on the last Friday of the month. The main hall is open 6am to 4pm and costs nothing. Six of the guided walks meet at its main gate, which is on the market side; map apps will sometimes route you round the back.
Namiyoke Inari Shrine — and the mound raised to sushi
The small shrine at the market's eastern edge is the strangest true thing in Tsukiji. This ground is reclaimed land, and the reclamation kept washing away until a deity was enshrined here to calm the waves; the work finished in 1659. The name means wave-warding.
It carries mounds raised to sushi, prawns, eggs and kelp, and a stone for clams — memorial mounds raised by the trades themselves, in thanks to the things they sell. Two giant lion heads, registered cultural properties of Chuo Ward, are carried through these streets at the summer festival.
What the shops sell that is not fish
A large share of the market has nothing to do with seafood, and it is the half most visitors walk past.
What the Tsukiji Outer Market sells beyond seafood
| Trade | What to look for | Roughly |
|---|---|---|
| Dried goods | Katsuobushi, kombu, dried scallop, shaved bonito to order | 500–3,000 yen |
| Tea | Sencha, gyokuro and hojicha sold by weight, often blended in-house | 800–4,000 yen |
| Pickles and tsukemono | Barrels of them, sold by the scoop, sampled at the counter | 300–1,500 yen |
| Tamagoyaki | Rolled omelette, cut hot and sold on a stick | 100–200 yen |
| Kitchenware | Grating boards, moulds, donabe pots, sushi mats | 1,000 yen upwards |
| Knives | Yanagiba, deba and santoku from makers who supply the trade | 8,000 yen upwards |
The knife makers
Several of the market's knife shops have supplied the fish trade for generations, and they are the reason a good number of visitors come here with no interest in eating at all. Blades are sold by profile rather than by brand: a yanagiba for slicing sashimi in one pull, a deba for breaking down a whole fish, a santoku for everything else.
Most shops will grind a name into the blade while you wait and will pack a knife for a flight. Carry it in checked baggage.
What to eat, and roughly what it costs
Eating here is done standing at the counter you bought from — the market asks you not to walk while you eat — or sitting down at one of the small restaurants between the stalls.
What a morning of eating at Tsukiji costs
| Dish | What it is | Roughly |
|---|---|---|
| Tamagoyaki | Sweet rolled omelette, hot, on a stick | 100–200 yen |
| Grilled scallop | Opened and grilled in the shell in front of you | 500–1,000 yen |
| Uni | Sea urchin, sold by the box and graded by origin | 1,500–8,000 yen |
| Wagyu skewer | Grilled over charcoal, sometimes torched to finish | 1,000–5,000 yen |
| Kaisendon | A bowl of rice under sashimi, eaten sitting down | 2,000–4,000 yen |
| Maguro cuts | Akami, chutoro and otoro, priced per 100g and labelled by cut | 600–4,000 yen |
| Dashimaki and fishcake | Fried, skewered, eaten at the stall | 200–500 yen |
Where the guided walks go
Every walk covers the main lanes. What separates them is how much of the rest they reach: the Uogashi building, the two shrines, the old market site and the small restaurants that open only to the trade. The routes are set out on each tour's own page, and the map page shows the eight points they meet at.
Every walk into these lanes, with what it covers
Six of these fares buy your food and the rest hand you a guide while you pay at each counter. Every one refunds in full at twenty-four hours' notice.
Come with an appetite and a little cash. Pick a best Tsukiji Fish Market tour and the ordering, the etiquette and the queues are somebody else's problem; the hours and the market's own rules and which morning to pick are the two things worth reading first either way.
Tsukiji Fish Market Tours lists them all with prices, group caps and meeting points.
Shop counts and trading hours are published by the market and change. Verify before you travel.