Imahan Honten North Inner Zashiki

What Is the Imahan Honten North Inner Zashiki?

The Imahan Honten North Inner Zashiki (今半本店北奥座敷, Imahan Honten Kita-okuzashiki) is a single-storey timber wing of private tatami rooms built in about 1956 behind the sukiyaki restaurant Imahan Honten in Asakusa 1-chome, Taito City, Tokyo, and it was entered on the register of Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on February 27, 2023. It covers 35 m² and is the youngest of the restaurant's three inner zashiki wings, finished some five years after the West and East wings.

Its registration number is 13-0474, under the criterion of serving as a model of design. It was renovated in 2005 and in 2014. The gabled roof was tiled when new and is now steel sheet.

Craft Over Timber

The Imahan Honten North Inner Zashiki has three rooms of about 4.5 mats each along a single-sided corridor on the south. The plan is close to that of the West wing, but the emphasis is different. The Agency for Cultural Affairs contrasts it with the East and West wings, which dwell on fine named timbers, and says the Imahan Honten North Inner Zashiki instead puts its care into technique: Kumiko lattice in the sliding fittings and woven ajiro ceilings.

Kumiko is joinery in which thin strips of wood are notched and fitted into geometric patterns without nails, used in shoji screens and transoms. An ajiro ceiling is made of thin shaved boards or strips woven like a mat, a favourite of sukiya rooms. In both, the result depends on the hours of handwork more than on the rarity of the wood.

Where its older neighbours matched room names to materials, the Imahan Honten North Inner Zashiki gives its rooms their character through screens and ceilings. Built only a few years apart for the same restaurant, the wings went in noticeably different directions.

A Room Called Hagi

Among the Agency's photographs of the Imahan Honten North Inner Zashiki is one captioned "Hagi" (bush clover), showing the alcove and the shoin desk area of a room, which suggests that one of the three rooms carries that name. The names of the other two are not given in the Agency's description.

The exterior photograph of the Imahan Honten North Inner Zashiki was taken from the courtyard behind the restaurant. Since only diners see the rooms, the staff are the best people to ask about the names of the other two.

Visiting the Imahan Honten North Inner Zashiki

The Imahan Honten North Inner Zashiki is in use as private dining rooms, so you can only go inside as a diner with a reservation. Rooms cannot be requested when booking, so there is no guarantee of being seated here. The wing faces a courtyard in the middle of the block and is unlikely to be visible from the street. Ask the staff before taking photos.

If you are seated in the Imahan Honten North Inner Zashiki, look closely at the lattice patterns in the screens and transoms, then up at the woven ceiling. Hours and directions are on the Imahan Honten page.