Leave the day to us.
Your journey. Japan’s heritage. Hand-crafted by licensed experts.
In this photograph
New Year's Eve at the mystical Oji Fox Pageant—bringing ancient legend to life.
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和敬清寂
wa · kei · sei · jaku
Our philosophy, and our promise
Four characters that decide
how the day gets built.
Omakase means “I leave it to you.” What we leave ourselves to is older than the word: 和敬清寂 — harmony, respect, purity, tranquillity. Four characters that describe the spirit a tea host and a guest are meant to meet in.
They turn out to describe a good day of travelling just as well. What follows is not a slogan. It is the standard we hold ourselves to, and the one you may hold us to.
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Wa — harmony
Our brand promise
The day moves at your pace,
not a timetable’s.Nothing here is rushing you, and nobody minds how long you stand somewhere. You are the reason the day exists. How today feels to you, and what happens to catch your eye — a licensed guide reads that and keeps to your stride. Stop at the alley that interests you; feel the season turn in the wind coming down it. Japan lived rather than listed, and the story you take home belongs to nobody else.
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Kei — respect
Our promise to the community
Travelling here should
leave something behind.A day we run is never built on the strain it puts on a neighbourhood. We work alongside the people who live in it, and a share of every tour fee goes straight back to them — to ordinary working life, and to keeping the festival lanterns lit. Not a boom that passes through and leaves. Tourism where the visitor and the resident hold each other’s culture in respect, and the place gets to be proud of itself again.
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Sei — purity
Our philosophy, and the difference
The part you cannot photograph
is the part you remember.A trip that only consumes the famous places never meets the country underneath them. We go looking for the beauty in an ordinary street the developers have not reached, and for the invisible story carried by people whose work is rooted in one place. What a national licence buys you is the real texture of the thing — as far from mass-produced sightseeing as we can make it, and run so that neither the environment nor the neighbourhood is left carrying the cost.
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Jaku — tranquillity
Our founding story
Carrying this country’s memory
into the next view.Keeping Japan’s traditions alive is how we defend a landscape that is quietly disappearing: the old scenes, and the prayers still kept in small places. As one town after another is replaced by the same view as the last, two licensed guide interpreters decided they were not willing to watch it happen. What we are after is a day that stops in a narrow lane, listens to the story told there, and feels the history folded into an ordinary street — its quiet, and its breath. We intend to hand the beautiful memory of this country to whoever comes next.
What we run
A short menu,
and everything on it moves.
These are the days we run most often. Every one of them gets rearranged for the people booking it, and about half of what we actually do never appears on this list at all.
How it goes
Four steps, and only
one of them is yours.
Most guests write to us about two months before they fly. The Kyoto days get booked earlier than that, and New Year's Eve earlier still.
You write to us
A few sentences is enough. Who is travelling, roughly when, and what you are curious about. You do not need dates locked in or a list of sights.
A guide answers, not a form
One of our licensed guides reads it and writes back with a rough shape for the day and honest questions. If what you want is better done by somebody else, we will say so.
We build the day around it
Route, timing, where to eat, how much walking, what to do if it rains. Entry tickets and restaurant reservations are handled before you land.
You just show up
Your guide meets you at your hotel. No group to keep up with, no flag to follow, and the plan can change at 11am if something better appears.
Worth asking about
Anyone in Japan may
call themselves a guide.
Since the law changed in 2018, being paid to guide visitors here requires no qualification at all. Most “local guide” platforms are staffed accordingly.
The national licence still exists, and it is hard. Written papers in a foreign language, in Japanese history, geography and general culture, then an oral interview. Under one in ten candidates passes.
Every OMAKASE tour is led by a licence holder. The numbers are printed on our about page, because a credential you cannot check is not a credential.
- Guide interpreter, English
- EN06299 · EN05385
- Guide interpreter, Chinese
- CH00922
- Travel service registration
- No. 20774
What guests say elsewhere
We would rather you
read these somewhere else.
Reviews on a company's own website are worth very little. These are the scores on the platforms where we cannot edit them.
4.9
On TripAdvisor, from 39 reviews
5.0
On Viator, from 44 reviews of our Tokyo day
100%
Of Viator guests recommend us
1
Party at a time — every private tour is yours alone
From the beginning, Hiro communicated with us very early and well to see what our wish list was, gave suggestions, and made reservations when we could not do it online. He was very accommodating…
Kaz created such a beautiful and meaningful first day for us in Japan. He shared his wealth of knowledge of history and culture as well as personal stories, and he also helped us to…
It was my family's first time in Tokyo and Hitomi showed us everything: trains and subways, shrines and temples, parks and busy streets, and the yummiest ramen restaurant. We had fun, learnt a lot…
From our days out
Photographs from recent tours, posted as we go. @omakase_llc
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Where the days go
Places we take people.
Some of these are famous and some are twenty minutes past the famous one, which is usually where the good part is.
