Kaiseki with Geisha in Tokyo: A Banquet, Course by Course, from an Asakusa Teahouse

Kaiseki with geisha is a Japanese course meal eaten at an ozashiki, a banquet in a private tatami room. The geisha pour your drinks and talk with you, then dance and play games between the dishes. At Miyakodori, the three-hour plan includes a seven-course meal and free-flowing drinks. The geisha do not eat, so the dishes are yours, and the dance and the games usually come in at familiar points in the menu.

Miyakodori is a machiai-chaya in Asakusa, founded in 1950: a traditional teahouse that hosts geisha banquets. This guide describes how the meal fits into the gathering, from what we see in our own rooms. Because we sell this meal, it also says where another kind of dinner may suit you better.

Kaiseki Means Two Different Meals

In English, one word covers two Japanese meals that sound the same. The first, written 懐石, is the plain meal a host serves before tea at a formal tea gathering (chanoyu). Its characters mean “breast-pocket stone”, and the name is thought to come from the warm stones Zen monks tucked into their robes against hunger. The second, written 会席, means a seat at a gathering. It is the banquet meal, served as a set menu with a tray for each guest.

The meal at an ozashiki is the banquet kind. It suits a room where people pour for one another and talk, so the dishes arrive alongside a dance and games, not in silence.

The distinction follows the Japanese dictionary Kōjien, as summarized in Wikipedia’s article on kaiseki.

If you are comparing kaiseki restaurants, our guide to kaiseki in Tokyo covers that side, and what a ryotei is explains the kind of house that serves banquet meals.

How the Courses Run at an Ozashiki

The three-hour plan serves seven courses. What follows is the usual order of a visit, not a timetable to the minute.

Our staff meet you at the door and take your bags, and incense is always lit when guests arrive. The geisha come in soon after you sit down. They bow, welcome you and keep the greeting short, so that the guests stay the center of the room. If your group arrived early, a first drink and a toast among yourselves often come before they enter.

Geisha have their own phrase for starting the dance, お座敷をつける (o-zashiki o tsukeru), which means putting on the performance. It usually happens about twenty minutes after you walk in, between the sashimi and the grilled dish, and the geisha are ready within a few minutes. A song lasts about three minutes, and guests tend to film more than they take photos. Our guide to the geisha dance explains what you are watching.

The games come next, usually around the simmered dish. They are simple parlor games played with the geisha, and our guide to ozashiki games describes them.

The end of the meal and the end of the visit arrive together. The last course is timed to your booking, and the rice and the fruit tell the room it is time to wind down. The visit closes with a group photo and a hand-clap called the tejime.

What the Geisha Do While You Eat

The geisha do not eat during the ozashiki. They are at work, pouring for you and talking with you, and the dishes are yours to enjoy.

Pouring goes both ways. Guests pouring for the geisha is welcome, and a geisha may ask whether she can have a drink from you. We tell every table that guests are welcome to pour for the geisha, including guests who do not drink themselves.

Free-flowing beer, house sake and a selection of non-alcoholic drinks are included in the three-hour plan, and an English-speaking interpreter is in the room, so conversation runs freely across the courses.

Seasons and the Menu

Kaiseki is built around the season. Cooks look for ingredients at their peak, and the plates are chosen to suit the time of year, so the same course looks different in spring and in autumn.

At Miyakodori the menu is not fixed. The soup is chosen for the time of year, the other courses shift with the season as well, and the closing rice course changes least. Most of the courses come from specialist caterers. We do not publish a fixed menu, since the dishes follow the season.

The room follows the calendar too. Almost everything in it changes, from the kimono and the flowers to the dances; in January, for example, the room carries New Year decorations.

At the Table: What to Know

• Shoes and socks. You take off your shoes at the entrance. Socks are a nice thing to have, since the floors are tatami.
• Seating. Every room has a tatami floor. Two rooms have tables and chairs, and one has a sunken-floor table (horigotatsu), so nobody has to kneel on the floor. Our page on the private ozashiki shows the rooms.
• Photos. Photos and video are welcome at a private ozashiki. Please do not live-stream.
• Leftovers. If you cannot finish a dish, ask the staff whether it can be packed to take home. It depends on the dish.

Dietary Needs, and When Kaiseki Is Served

Tell us about allergies and dietary restrictions when you book. Vegetarian and vegan guests, and guests with allergies, can be accommodated. Guests who need a fully halal or fully kosher meal are served a bento in place of the kaiseki, and we ask for five days’ notice.

Kaiseki is served when a visit starts at 17:30 or later, and the three-hour plan accepts start times between 17:30 and 20:00. A visit that starts earlier can add a seasonal bento instead, and so can the one-hour plan at any hour. The two-hour plan can add a kaiseki course if it starts at 17:30 or later; it is ordered for every guest, two days ahead.

If you want a first look without a meal, the 75-minute Ozashiki Tea House serves matcha and a Japanese sweet in a shared room.

Other Ways to Have a Cultural Dinner in Tokyo

If you are still choosing, the kinds of cultural dinner in Tokyo differ mainly in who does the entertaining and how much you take part. We run the last of these, so the table describes the others in general terms.

Booking Kaiseki with Geisha at Miyakodori

The plan that includes the meal is the three-hour Geisha Kaiseki Dinner. It comes with:

• a seven-course meal
• free-flowing beer, house sake and a selection of non-alcoholic drinks
• three geisha as standard
• an English-speaking interpreter

Visits start between 17:30 and 20:00, and one guest can book alone. Rates depend on the number of guests, so we leave them to our pricing page, where they stay current. If you want the plans side by side, our guide to the cost of a geisha dinner works through them. If you are still deciding, our piece on whether a geisha experience in Tokyo is worth it may help.

Miyakodori stands behind Senso-ji, about three minutes’ walk beyond the temple grounds.