Imahan Honten West Inner Zashiki

What Is the Imahan Honten West Inner Zashiki?

The Imahan Honten West Inner Zashiki (今半本店西奥座敷, Imahan Honten Nishi-okuzashiki) is a single-storey timber wing of private tatami rooms built in about 1951 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 36 m² under a gabled roof that was tiled when new and is now finished in steel sheet.

Its registration number is 13-0472, under the criterion of serving as a model of design, and it was renovated in 2014. The Agency for Cultural Affairs values the Imahan Honten West Inner Zashiki as a sukiya-style Zashiki wing composed of the small rooms typical of a sukiyaki house.

Three Rooms, Three Kinds of Cedar

Inside, the Imahan Honten West Inner Zashiki lines up three 4.5-mat rooms, each with a Tokonoma alcove, along a single-sided corridor on the north. The rooms are called Kasuga, Yoshino and Jindai, and according to the Agency, the ceiling boards and other surfaces in each are cut from the cedar that gives the room its name.

Yoshino cedar, from the mountains of southern Nara, is prized for its straight, even grain. Jindai-sugi is cedar that lay buried in the ground for centuries until it darkened to a smoky brown. Looking up is the quickest way to tell which of the three rooms you are in.

A 4.5-mat room seats two to four people around one pot, which is exactly the size of a sukiyaki party. The design of the Imahan Honten West Inner Zashiki takes that small unit and gives each room a character of its own through the timber. The Agency's database includes a photograph of the alcove and window in the Kasuga room.

A Raised Floor With Storage Below

The Imahan Honten West Inner Zashiki also sits on a raised floor, and the space underneath was made into a storeroom. On a tight lot in the middle of an Asakusa block, this put storage directly beneath the guest rooms.

The Agency's exterior photograph shows the Imahan Honten West Inner Zashiki from the narrow passage, or tori-niwa, at the back of the restaurant, which is the side where the height of the floor is easiest to see.

Visiting the Imahan Honten West Inner Zashiki

The Imahan Honten West 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, which means there is no guarantee of being seated in this wing. The wing faces a passage in the middle of the block and is unlikely to be visible from the street. Ask the staff before taking photos in the rooms.

If you are shown to Kasuga, Yoshino or Jindai, look at the alcove and the cedar overhead. Hours and directions for the restaurant are on the Imahan Honten page.