Tokyo can now proudly wear its culinary stars on its shoulder (191 of them, according to the latest Michelin Guide, nearly twice as many as second-place Paris) – but for a real taste of how everyday Japanese dine, look past the sushi to Japan's second great dining specialty: theme restaurants. From medical prisons to maid cafés, they reveal a country given to confusedly mixing cultural contexts, with strange, sometimes laughably inappropriate results.
1. The Wizard of the Opera
Worth it for the name alone, this restaurant promises "gorgeous and gothic dining", but what they really mean is that it's opera-themed. The sauces are drawn on like musical notation, they make a delicious smoked-salmon dish ingeniously (no, really) shaped like a rose, and they'll even squirt out the word "opera" for you in cursive chocolate. The tables are made of marble and the music is – duh – opera. The quality of the cuisine doesn't measure up to the Wizard's high-culture aesthetic, being largely manufactured at the same facility that serves the dozens of other restaurants owned by the Diamond Dining group, but if your date complains just put an admonishing finger to their lips and then use that finger to indicate the Donizetti.
Wizard of the Opera; +81 3 3985 2193
2. Princess Heart
Princess Heart plays straight to the frilly delusion of many a young lady, promising to transform you into a monstrous Disneyfied conflation of Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. It's a magical fantasy land on the fifth floor of an office building in Ginza, the city's very-expensive-pen district. The elevator doors open to a smiling manservant who addresses you using honorific Japanese usually reserved for royalty. Then he shows you to a full-length mirror in which, apparently, you are expected to preen. Then inside is a magical forest with a giant wizard's tree and heart-shaped chairs. The desserts are shaped variously like hearts, clocks, hearts and hearts. Try "Salad Rolls of Shrimp and Steam Chicken with Two Sauces Enchanted with Sleeping Beauty's Voice", or "Something Cinderella Leaf-Baked Custard of Magic at 12 O'Clock". Just make sure you leave before the dwarves kiss you at midnight, or whatever.
3. Namahage
For good luck, some people rub rabbits' feet. In the northern prefecture of Akita, on the other hand, they dress as demons, striking fear into the hearts of young children and making them cry. If you're thinking, "sounds like a brilliant idea for a family restaurant," too bad - Namahage's beaten you to it. While you're eating your meal (your standard nabe soups and fried chicken, loosely based on traditional Akita cooking), the lights suddenly cut out, and a deafening wailing fills the air. Stamping and shouting in the semi-darkness, performers dressed as giant "namahage" evil spirits go from table to table, as they are said to go from house to house in Akita, asking: "Any bad guys, or lazy guys?" To demonstrate your innocence, so that the Namahage will offer a blessing rather than take you back to the mountains for eternity, you're expected to feign surprise or even fear – though the performance is entertainingly jarring enough that you won't have to fake it. It's like a meal and a traumatizing character test in one. Surprisingly popular with families.
Namahage; 2nd floor, Roppongi3-13-2, Minato-ku, Tokyo; +81 3 5410 0012
4. Alcatraz ER
Alcatraz, the crazy old uncle of Japanese theme restaurants, kickstarted the trend about a decade ago by capitalising on everyone's love of hospital food. The setting is a "medical prison". You are the patient. The waitresses are dressed as the type of nurses that exist only in Benny Hill re-runs. They handcuff you, pretend to inject a giant needle into your rear, and then lock you in a cell. There, you can order such dishes as Dead Chicken (in which two chicken feet are clasped together in peaceful repose), Penis Sausage (in which a sausage is carved to resemble a severed penis) and Intestine (another sausage, and sort of odd considering that you can order actual intestine in any of Tokyo's zillion yakitori restaurants). Try the cocktails: the false teeth in a jar has particular bite. Occasionally, the staff will "accidentally" open your cell door and it's your mission to go screaming around the restaurant in a wheelchair evading the outstretched hands of other prisoners.
Alcatraz ER; 2F Harvest Bldg, 2-13-5 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku; +81 3 3770 7100
5. Alice in Wonderland
On the continuum of Japanese cosplay, the character of Alice trails the French Maid in terms of sexiness, but is well ahead of Bo Peep. So it's a good thing that the Alice In Wonderland restaurant keeps things family-friendly. True, you are served by a battalion of waitresses, all dressed like Alice. But plenty of other touches keep the atmosphere from becoming totally creepy: bunny tails on the chairs, a big clock against one wall, and a Mad Hatter Tea Party room over which towers a giant lamp (you've shrunk, remember?) that contrasts with a tiny version at the entrance (back when you were huge). Some appetizers come served on a chessboard, and the pizzas are done up like playing-card soldiers. Try the Green Caterpillar tuna and avocado sushi roll, or the cute Mock Turtle Mimosa Salad.
Alice in Wonderland; Taiyo Bldg, 5F, 8-8-5 Ginza, Chou-ku, Tokyo 104-0061; +81 3 3574 6980
6. @home Café
Famous, and with good reason. First, you have to pick a floor – 5th, 6th or 7th – and then spend upwards of an hour queuing, on the fire escape, no less. Some people buy hot oden stew-in-a-can from the vending machine for the wait; this is not recommended. When you finally get to the front of the line, you're handed a list of rules – one hour maximum, no touching, strictly no photography – and then ushered into a bright, plasticky café around which bustles a gang of almost parodically cute, friendly young women dressed as French maids. A maid pops up in front of your table to welcome you with a selection of hand poses. You're allowed one photo onstage with any maid you like, performing a hand pose of your choosing – we went for "cat claws", but "heart shape" and "finger to corner of mouth" are popular alternatives. Or, for 300 yen, play a game with a maid – we soundly defeated our maid in a version of Rock'Em'Sock'Em Robots that was clearly rigged in our favour. Every hour, the maids get up onstage to sing a J-pop song (the café's maids are all, of course, in a band, called Agumi); everyone in the café is expected to follow along with the hand gestures. Then there's a rousing game of group janken (rock-paper-scissors). The eventual winner was a tall, stooped man with thinning hair who had come alone. He won a sticker. Oh, and the maids will write a personalised message for you on your omu-raisu (omelette-rice) in ketchup. Baffling.
@home Café; Mitsuwa bldg, 7F, 1-11-4 Soto-kanda, Chiyoda-ku; +81 3 5294 7704
7. Vowz
In the same way many Japanese mix and match bits of pop culture, they often think nothing of mixing and matching bits of different religions. Yoshinobu Fujioka, an ordained Buddhist priest of the Shin Buddhism sect, took advantage of this openness. Playing on the idea of the bartender-as-confessor, he took it to its logical conclusion: he opened a bar. At Vowz (a pun on "vows" and the Japanese term for "shaved head"), Fujioka slings drinks to customers – Buddhist, Christian, Dawkinian, you name it – cracks jokes, listens to their problems, and gives them advice based on Buddhist teachings. Every night he conducts a short prayer ceremony before the altar in the corner. Try his patented mix of cranberry juice, lemon and habushu poisonous-snake water, which he calls Aiyokujigoku, literally "Love-Desire-Hell" ("Because in Buddhism, as in other walks of life, love can become hell," he laughs) or a glass of Hannyatou "Wise Hot Water", the sake invented by a Buddhist monk to hide his drunkenness from his killjoy colleagues.
2F AG Bldg, 6 Arakicho, Yotsuya, Shinjuku-ku; +81 3 3353 1032
8. Ninja Akasaka
Ninja is a classy immersion in Shogun-era coolness. A featureless black doorway in Tokyo's Akasake-Mitsuke business district leads to a maze of cave-like corridors. Soon you're greeted by a ninja and given a secret password. Watch out for the disintegrating bridge! The food is spectacular modern Japanese, with the prices to match – in one showy dish a sword is yanked from a coconut to release a fountain of dry ice smoke. The dessert menu is particularly dramatic – we won't give it away – and if you're lucky you'll get treated to a visit from … cue taiko drum roll … the illusionist. It's no surprise they've got a signed plaque commemorating Steven Spielberg's visit: the place feels like a set from Indiana Jones and the Ninjas of Tokyo.
1F Akasaka Tokyu Plaza 2-14-3 Nagata-cho Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo;
+81 3 5157 3936
9. Vampire Café
Diamond Dining's first theme restaurant now seems a little dated compared to the flash of Ninja, but it's still got a certain bloody charm. Dark red velvet curtains frame a passageway that is lit from below by a glowing floor of red blood cells; cobwebs drape around the chandeliers; in a nice touch, all the mirrors are broken. The place isn't as bustling as it used to be, and the food is standard modern-izakaya fare, but Vampire Café's attention to detail is excellent, and it remains one of the only theme restaurants in Tokyo that you might actually want to stop by for a quick drink – Bloody Mary, Blood Clot, Blood Orange and Vodka, you name it.
Vampire Café; 7F La Paix Bldg, 6-7-6 Ginza, Chuo-ku; +81 03 3289 5360
10. Christon Café
"Oh God," said my fellow diner, a devoutly raised Irish Catholic, as he stared around at the decoration in the Christon Café. "If Father Hickey saw me here… " It's unclear what he was so worried about. The owner of Christon merely spent the last decade buying ancient church paraphernalia in South America and hauling it all back to a cavernous dining hall in Tokyo's red-light district. Gargoyles, huge oil paintings and even huger chandeliers loom over an altar featuring a gaggle of Virgin Mary statues framing a glowing, crucified Christ, backlit in ever-changing, multicoloured neon. Plus the drinks come with crucifix stir-sticks.