English-Language Restaurant Reservation Sites in Japan

Let’s compare eight English language restaurant reservation sites in Japan for every budget and diet.

During peak seasons, making dining reservations is borderline essential. Fortunately, there are more ways than ever to book Japan’s sought-after restaurants for a vacation or night out. To make sure you’re finding eateries that best fit your budget, dining style and travel needs, compare the pros and cons of these English-language restaurant reservation booking sites in Japan before you reserve!

1. Tabelog

© Photo by Tabelog

Tabelog is the largest restaurant site in Japan. The multilingual version runs simply on browsers and can be accessed on a PC or smartphone. It lists hundreds of thousands of restaurants and relies on user feedback to create new listings. A Tabelog 3.0+ rating is considered very good. It’s a good option for finding food in under-touristed destinations.

Pros:

• It has any genre of food and even omiyage (souvenirs)
• Great for casual/family reservations
• Covers the entire country and all price points
• Well-respected and widely recognized locally
• User-powered, with real pictures of food and interior for most eateries
• No account needed to reserve

Cons:

• The reservation process is clunky and time-consuming, plus fees.
• Compared to the number of listed restaurants, the English site offers limited reservation options.
• English-language users cannot participate in ratings/account creation
• Overwhelming options

Try it yourself: https://tabelog.com/en/

2. GMO Omakase Japan: Eatinerary

© Photo by GMO Omakase Japan: Eatinerary

Eatinerary is the English-language offshoot of GMO’s Omakase booking service. Eatinerary focuses on fine dining options and is an official partner of the Michelin Guide. Thanks to exclusive contracts and partnerships, sought-after reservations at extremely popular restaurants can sometimes be booked immediately.

Pros: 

• Michelin Guide Partner, internationally respected
• Vetted eateries, high-quality options
• Guaranteed seats at some hard-to-book restaurants

Cons:

• No keyword search can make finding desired restaurants challenging
• Reservation requests aren’t guaranteed in all cases
• Limited to fine dining options

Try it yourself: https://omakaseje.com/

3. Savor Japan

© Photo by Savor Japan

Savor Japan, by Hitosara, a part of the USEN corporation, is widely respected by chefs and goes in-depth to introduce the people behind the cuisine. You can filter restaurants by whether they offer Western cutlery or have English-speaking staff on site. Chef-recommended restaurants are an interesting feature of this site, which the official Japanese Tourism Bureau backs.

Pros: 

• In-depth information about restaurants, chefs, regions and more.
• Many historically relevant restaurants for a culture deep-dive
• A lot of interesting content

Cons:

• The website is busy and can be intimidating to navigate
• Better suited to intense foodies, at-a-glance searching can be daunting
• Mostly high-end restaurants

Try it yourself: https://savorjapan.com/

4. TableCheck

© Photo by TableCheck

Tablecheck has quickly expanded across the globe. It is definitely more of a booking site than a tourist-focused platform. Tablecheck has partnerships with Visa, allowing the service to offer discounts and an integrated payment system for contactless payments—you can just eat and leave. However, some restaurants actually require an upfront payment. Restaurants register and pay for Tablecheck as a management service, meaning that the restaurant manages courses, seats, booking availability and so on directly from Tablecheck’s admin side.

Pros: 

• All-in-one search-booking-payment service
• Sleek modern design with iPhone app and global presence
• Restaurants manage their pages themselves
• No need to register for an account

Cons:

• Only paid, opt-in restaurants are available
• Search functions work significantly better on desktop than on mobile
• Mostly higher-end restaurants, less catered to tourists

Try it yourself: https://www.tablecheck.com/en/japan

5. Japan byFood

© Photo by Japan byFood

This service is built by foreigners, for foreigners. Each of the nearly 13,500 restaurants listed on byFood has been personally contacted. It features listings and descriptions written by actual humans instead of auto-translate. Japan byFood is also a tour platform. It partners with locals to offer exclusive experiences that go beyond restaurants. Although byFood charges a fee to book with them, each restaurant booking donates meals to underprivileged countries.

Pros: 

• All price ranges represented, good for group bookings
• Can also book tours/experiences
• Foreigner-Japanese co-owned company 
• Donates to charity

Cons: 

• Smaller restaurant pool than some Japanese brands
• Booking fees and upfront costs
• Reservations are not guaranteed in all cases
• Heavily tourism-focused brand

Try it yourself: https://www.byfood.com/

6. Pocket Concierge

© Photo by Pocket Concierge

Pocket Concierge features in-depth histories, stories and delicious imagery (both visual and verbal) for every restaurant on its site. It’s unique because it offers the option of being put on a waitlist instead of getting an outright “no” from popular restaurants and publicly announced collaborations/events. The company is backed by American Express.

Pros: 

• Beautiful, educational restaurant introductions
• Waitlist options at high-quality, vetted venues
• Highlights special events and collaborations
• Integrated payments

Cons: 

• Credit card pre-registration is needed
• Only high-end restaurants
• Reservations are not guaranteed in all cases
• Limited locations (Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Kyoto only)

Try it yourself: https://pocket-concierge.jp/en

7. Tableall

© Photo by Tableall

Tableall prides itself on guaranteed booking reservations by purchasing seats at partner restaurants ahead of time. In exchange, users need to sign up for membership and pay a substantial booking fee. Tableall is Singapore-based but has been run by a Japanese national since 2016. Restaurant listings read more like articles and are likely to leave diners salivating before they ever click reserve.

Pros: 

• Beautiful, educational restaurant introductions
• Immediate reservations
• Great, captivating English

Cons: 

• High up-front costs
• Limited selection
• Only high-end restaurants
• No keyword search function for pinpointing

Try it yourself: https://www.tableall.com/

8. Foodies Reserve

© Photo by Foodies Reserve

Foodies Reserve was launched at the end of 2024 and is still widely unknown. It was founded by Takashi Sugai, who also launched the domestic, invitation-only gourmet reservation-sharing site Foodies Prime. Foodies Reserve holds some exclusive reservation openings for notoriously hard-to-book restaurants and partners directly to offer locally coveted seats at Japan’s best-kept secrets.

Pros: 

• Restaurants not available anywhere else/secret offerings
• The peak of what’s new in restaurants
• Easy to discover new restaurants at many price points
• Hard-to-book restaurants made available

Cons: 

• Limited offerings and locations
• The site uses auto-translated English, not a seamless experience
• Still too small to judge the overall quality

Try it yourself: https://www.foodies-reserve.com/en

Bonus: Eat Tokyo

© Photo by Eat Tokyo

Eat Tokyo is a multi-pronged service by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, including a “Search Page for Restaurants with Multilingual Menus,” which benefits restaurants as much as users. Eat Tokyo verifies self-registered restaurants and details and lists them on its search board. In exchange, the restaurants get free access to all-you-can-translate printable and digital multilingual menus using official translations. Although it’s not actually possible to reserve restaurants on this site, the Eat Japan library is deployed on public GO Japan kiosks and is a handy search tool.

Pros: 

• Halal, Vegan and Allergy-friendly complete menus
• Officially backed by the Tokyo Government
• Offers support to restaurants on the backend
• All price ranges represented

Cons: 

• Can’t actually make reservations
• The site is incredibly difficult to get to—impossible to stumble upon
• Can be hard to actually find what you’re looking for (major areas like Nakameguro for example, are missing) and only works in Tokyo

Try it yourself: https://menu-tokyo.jp/

Final Remarks

Each of these English-language restaurant reservation services in Japan offers unique restaurants, services and particulars. There is no one “right service,” but after considering the pros and cons of each, which one are you most likely to use?

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