Brown Rice by Neal's Yard Remedies

If you live or work in the Omotesando/Harajuku area, this is an ideal spot for a quick lunch or afternoon tea. There are small tables against the floor-to-ceiling windows and along the back wall, while the centre of the restaurant has space for single diners who can take up a spot at two large wooden tables. After your meal, you can nip next door to Neal’s Yard Remedies – the restaurant works as a kind of extension to the store – and stock up on organic skin care, essential oils and healing leaf teas.

At Brown Rice, the focus is on whole foods, something that is evident in both the flavour and texture of the foods. It’s earthy and unfussy, and you really do get the feeling that the veggies packed into the miso soup have just been picked in a garden outside (in reality, they are delivered daily from farms around the country). One page in the menu is dedicated to telling you where their ingredients are sourced from, for example, the home-made raw miso is made with malted white rice from Yamagata Prefecture, while the award winning sticky brown rice hails from Toyama Prefecture.

We opted for the Monthly Brown Rice Bowl (¥1,300) which is the kind of meal you could eat every day – just a simple layer of pumpkin, carrots, daikon (radish), sweet potato and lettuce, covered with a sweet sauce and served on unpolished brown rice, along with miso soup and pickled veg. The set includes coffee, grain coffee or hot blended hojicha (roasted green tea). If you’re there for afternoon tea, you’ll be pleased to know that their desserts are all dairy free and made with sugar alternatives such as beet sugar and brown rice amazake.