If you are a vegan, you might have heard of T’s Tantan, a vegan restaurant loved by most vegans in Tokyo. The famous vegan restaurant chain’s origin is T’s Restaurant in Jiyūgaoka (自由が丘). The owner was able to open T’s Tantan because T’s Restaurant was successful. So, if you ever plan to spend a day in Jiyūgaoka, stop by the restaurant for some incredible plant-based food!
About T’s Restaurant
Most people have the stereotype that plant-based food isn’t as delicious as those made from ingredients derived from animals. But that isn’t the case, and T’s Restaurant proves it to the world. The restaurant aims to provide a menu that is delicious no matter who eats it.
Unlike T’s Tantan, T’s Restaurant has lunch, dinner, and dessert menus. There is a good selection of cuisines on the menu. From ramen from Japan to lasagna from Italy, you will surely find something you want to eat here!
The restaurant has an open kitchen where the kitchen staff and customers can see each other. Not only could the customers see how their orders are made, but they are welcomed by the kitchen staff when they enter the restaurant.
If you have just started your veganism journey, T’s Restaurant is the place that will make you feel you can continue being vegan. It is a common scene in the restaurant where customers put on their amazed faces while complimenting how incredible the plant-based food tastes. The food at T’s Restaurant is what the meat-eaters could feel that they could be vegan if all plant-based food tasted this nice.
The only complaint we have about their menu is the portion. It wasn’t big enough for us that we had to order side dishes to be fully satisfied. However, that also gave us opportunities to explore more items on their menu.
T’s Restaurant’s History
The owner of T’s Tantan is Shimokawa-san (下川さん). When it came to sirloin steaks, she liked the ‘fat’ most. However, her preference changed after one of her friends became ill. The doctor’s advice was to consume less meat and fish. That was when she started thinking about how to make healthy food for her family.
She wanted people to experience delicious food, even if they are vegan or vegetarian. So, as a full-time housewife, she spent a lot of time creating mouthwatering plant-based dishes. This led to the opening of T’s Restaurant (Ｔ’ｓレストラン) in Jiyūgaoka, where T’s Tantan’s tantan noodle soup was developed.
Obviously, things didn’t go well in the beginning. As you can imagine, it was extremely hard to replace all animal ingredients with plant-based ones. She couldn’t even make the miso soup right.
Things went much smoother after Shimokawa-san used frozen, dried tofu (高野豆腐) to make the meat sauce. She mimicked the meat’s texture and taste so well that her family couldn’t tell what they were eating didn’t contain any meat until they were told!
T’s Restaurant’s Menu
To ensure everyone at the table can enjoy food, gluten-free, oriental vegetarian, and Muslim-friendly dishes are available. Even a selection of natural wines is on offer! Moreover, T’s Restaurant is one of the few places where you can try vegan eggs. If you have tasted the real egg, you would agree that the vegan egg served here replicates the taste perfectly.
T’s Restaurant also does its vegan meat right. The well-seasoned soy meat rivals the tastiness of real meat. We especially like the grilled version (the brown thing on the plate in the photo). Whether served with rice or noodles, order and find out how incredibly tasty soy meat can be!
For dessert, how about a fruity parfait or a Crème Brûlée? Where else could you find a vegan version of the delicious French dessert?
If you are in Japan during the New Year period, take away their vegan Osechi box. Osechi is what the Japanese would normally eat during the first few days of the new year. As you can imagine, a vegan version is extremely hard to come by. So, grab it when it is available and enjoy an authentic Japanese new year! We are sure you will like everything (or most dishes at least) in the box!
You can normally reserve their Osechi box through their Instagram account and pick it up at the restaurant.
While in Japanese-only, refer to T’s Restaurant’s menu and get excited about your visit. The menu includes photos of the dishes, so it shouldn’t be hard to picture what each dish is.
Our Visit to T’s Restaurant
While we planned to have lunch at T’s Restaurant, we didn’t expect to randomly walk past it. This is how easy the vegan restaurant is to find when you walk around Jiyūgaoka. Although it is underground, T’s Restaurant has an obvious sign on the street level.
We had a late lunch at T’s Restaurant, so we got to choose wherever we wanted to sit. The menu was filled with mouthwatering photos, and it was rather hard to decide what to order. In the end, we settled with Dipping Noodle Soup and Season Curry. Because lunch is served in lunch set style, two plates of salads were also a part of our lunch.
As someone who prepared vegetables to be cooked, I found T’s Restaurant’s salad nicer than expected (refer to the 2nd photo in the Instagram post). The vegan Thousand Island Dressing had the right level of saltiness. Unlike some chain restaurants, the vegetables on the plate were fresh.
The curry with seasonal vegetables had two types of curry sauce. One was nutty, and the other would have been better if it had been less salty. The rice portion was a little bit small compared to the amount of curry on the plate. Sadly, we couldn’t order another bowl of rice.
The best thing we loved was the soy meat in the Dipping Noodle Soup. It was truly phenomenal. It tasted just like real grilled meat, and we would order another plate of grilled soy meat on the side if we could! The soup was nice and rich, too, but not to the point that it was too thick to consume.
Because we weren’t exactly full after finishing two sets of meals, we ordered another set. This time, we had a vegan cheese Paella Doria (refer to the last photo in the Instagram post). While not as impressive as the vegan meat, it was still incredible.
T’s Restaurant’s Business Hours and Access Information
- T’s Restaurant is open from 11:30 am to 9 pm.
- The last order is taken at 8:30 pm.
- The restaurant is closed from the end of December to the beginning of January.
- T’s Restaurant is within a 5-minute walk from Tokyu’s Jiyūgaoka Station (自由が丘駅).
Discover the Vegan/Vegetarian-Friendly Restaurants in Japan
While at a slow pace, veganism is becoming increasingly common in Japan, especially in the big cities. And keeping the good fame of heaven for foodies, the food offered in these restaurants is amazing!
So refer to our Vegetarian Dining category for more ideas about where to enjoy food in Japan without harming any animals!
