Itoki Shoten Former Store and Main House

What Is the Itoki Shoten Former Store and Main House?

The Itoki Shoten Former Store and Main House (伊藤喜商店旧店舗兼主屋, Itōki Shōten) is a 2-storey timber Machiya facing north onto Matsubara-dori in Higashiyama Ward, Kyoto, built around 1926 as the shop and home of a soy sauce dealer and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on July 8, 2008. It covers a building area of 145 square meters and comes with a boundary wall.

The house is Hirairi, meaning the eaves, not the gable, face the street. The roof is a Kirizuma-zukuri gable finished in Sangawara-buki pantiles, and a copper-roofed pent eave runs along the ground floor. At 5.5 ken across, the frontage is broad by the standards of Kyoto townhouses.

The building was renovated in 2007 for use as a restaurant, and the national database records its date as "around 1926, renovated 2007."

Why It Was Registered

The Itoki Shoten Former Store and Main House was registered as a model of design. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as a good example of a large machiya of the Taisho period.

Size is part of the point. Most Kyoto townhouses sit on narrow, deep lots. This one spreads its facade across the full 5.5-ken width, with a bath and toilet projecting at the back. A wholesaler needed room for stock as well as a household, and the building provides both under one roof.

So is survival. The 2007 conversion was designed to be reversible, and according to the Kyoto association of registered property owners, the earthen passage running through the house (the Toriniwa) still has its original cupboards and cooking range. The use changed; the fabric of 1926 largely did not.

What to Look For

Round lattices

On the ground floor, windows flank the central doorway, and each is screened by a lattice of wooden bars that are round in section. Kyoto lattices are usually made of squared timber. Round bars catch the light differently: the shadow curls around each bar instead of breaking at a hard edge, which softens the whole front of the Itoki Shoten shop.

Stone dado and juraku walls

The lower part of the ground-floor wall is faced with stone; Kyoto City calls it natural stone. Above it, and on the upper floor, the walls are finished in juraku, the earthen plaster traditionally associated with Kyoto. Stone below and clay above give the facade its weight.

A curved copper eave and upper lattices

The copper pent eave over the ground floor has a slight upward swell, called mukuri, according to Kyoto City. Upstairs, fine lattices stand in front of wooden glazed windows. Compare the two floors and you will see the lattice grow thinner and denser as it rises.

How to Visit

The facade of the Itoki Shoten Former Store and Main House can be viewed from Matsubara-dori. Because the house faces north, standing on the north side of the street lets you take in the whole 5.5-ken front at once.

From 2007, the interior was open to diners at the French restaurant Kishozakura, but the restaurant posted a closure notice in February 2025. We could not confirm that the interior is accessible now (checked September 27, 2026), so a look at the original cupboards and cooking range is not guaranteed.

No signs prohibiting photography were found. Matsubara-dori carries traffic, so shoot from the edge of the road and keep it brief.