· By Wataru Ito · Travel · 3 min read
In Japan? Get a Melon. A Whole One.
Tokyo has many luxuries, but few are as gloriously excessive—or as delicious—as a whole Sembikiya muskmelon.
If you’re in Japan—preferably in or around Tokyo—and you’re the kind of gourmand who craves a local-only food experience, head to Sembikiya, a luxury fruit shop founded in 1834. Buy a melon. Or at least a few slices. Just eat it. Experience it.
You’re welcome.
This article could end here, but perhaps I should elaborate.
Japan is known for cars, J-pop, anime, and video games. You realize just how true this is when an Italian American plumber from New York—created in Kyoto—greets you at Narita after you clear immigration. Or perhaps that is simply how Japan likes to see itself. Yet one Japanese specialty that receives comparatively little attention abroad is produce.
Not every Japanese producer does this, obviously, but some become obsessed with quality—whether the product is a car, a work of art, a piece of fruit, or a slab of meat—and push their craft to an almost unreasonable extreme, for better or worse. Consider A5 Kobe beef: so intensely marbled that it seems to dissolve in your mouth, and so rich that after a few bites your body may quietly file a complaint. It is product refinement taken past perfection and into a different postal code.
Produce is no exception to this appetite for excessive perfection.
Recently, Oishii stormed American supermarkets with its premium ichigo (strawberries), and Michelin-starred chefs began featuring the berries in dishes and desserts. Founded to bring Japanese fruit culture to the United States, the company grows Japanese strawberry varieties year-round in indoor vertical farms—because apparently even the weather itself needed tighter quality control.
If there’s a Japanese supermarket near you—and, in the United States, there may be one closer than you think—you might find, in season, a package of strawberries that works out to $5–$10 per berry. Not per package. Per berry.
Umami-packed shiitake are another premium export coveted by high-end restaurants. Sugimoto Shoten (杉本商店) is known for dried shiitake with extraordinary flavor. These mushrooms do not have to accept a minor role as soup stock. Rehydrate one, treat it like a steak, and it can seize the center of the plate and knock diners flat with a flood of juicy umami.
Back to Sembikiya. Its premium fruit is often bought as a formal gift. The showcases look less like produce aisles than jewelry counters. The melons sit there, meticulously arranged, waiting to be boxed and sent to a relative, business partner, or friend. But nothing—and no one at Sembikiya—will stop you from buying an entire melon for yourself.
If your hotel or Airbnb has a refrigerator and a kitchen—or at least a surface large enough to perform minor melon surgery—buy the whole thing. Ask the staff which one is ripe and ready to eat.
The melons are generally sold a few days before peak ripeness. If you ask politely, though, the staff should be happy to help you choose one to eat that day. Then chill it before the ceremony.
Or order melon at one of their fruit parlors. They have excellent cafés with plenty of desserts and cut-fruit plates, for people who prefer not to perform surgery in a hotel room.
They are not cheap. By normal-melon standards, they are ludicrously expensive: a whole one can cost about $110–$200. But by once-in-Tokyo luxury standards—especially if you split it with your entire party—they begin to seem almost reasonable. Almost.
You’re already in Tokyo. You’re already near Sembikiya. So why not experience flesh that melts, juice that practically leaps out of the fruit, and sweetness packed into every fragrant bite?
Buy the melon. You can explain the credit-card charge later.
