Restaurant · Omotesando
Tonkatsu Maisen Aoyama Honten とんかつ まい泉 青山本店
Tokyo's most famous tonkatsu house, serving cutlets 'so tender you can cut them with chopsticks' inside a converted 1940s public bathhouse in Omotesando. Kurobuta pork, dazzling cabbage refills and the iconic katsu sando to go.
Kurobuta hire katsu set: ¥3,500
Katsu sando (takeaway): ¥800
About
Founded in 1965, Maisen built its reputation on pork so soft it is cut with chopsticks rather than knives, fried in a light, crisp panko jacket. The Aoyama flagship occupies a former sento (public bath), and the main dining hall still has the high ceiling and skylight of the old bathing room. The menu runs from affordable lunch sets to premium Kagoshima kurobuta (Berkshire black pork) and Tokyo X pork, all served with miso soup, pickles and unlimited shredded cabbage, rice and soup. At the front is a takeaway counter selling Maisen's famous katsu sando, a soft white-bread sandwich that is one of Tokyo's classic bento picks for the shinkansen. With some 200 seats, the wait is usually far shorter than at the small tonkatsu specialists.
Highlights
- Dining room inside a converted 1940s sento with its original high ceiling
- Kurobuta (black pork) hire and rosu sets, the hire is the signature
- Bottomless cabbage, rice and miso soup with every set
- Takeaway katsu sando, one of Tokyo's iconic train snacks
- Large restaurant, so queues move faster than at small counters
Tips
- Order hire (fillet) for melt-in-mouth tenderness; rosu (loin) for juicier, fattier flavour
- Weekday lunch before 11:30 or after 14:00 usually means little or no wait
- Grab a katsu sando from the takeaway counter for a picnic in Yoyogi Park or the next shinkansen
- Lunch sets are noticeably cheaper than the same cuts at dinner
Open in Google Maps · Info checked 2026-10-09
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