Sabasu Pizza in Akasaka, Tokyo
I have a love-hate relationship with Neapolitan-style pizza in Japan, but when it comes to Sabasu in Akasaka in Minato City, Tokyo – it’s all about the love; they make a completely extraordinary, artistic-grade pizza. As we put together our list of the best pizza in Tokyo, Sabasu makes the grade.
Sabasu サバス is in Akasaka; a unique pizza shop in Tokyo – in a category, where it’s hard to be unique. The Naples-style pizza is done with a thin crust, in a very hot oven; often wood-fueled and/or made of brick. The staple is the Margarita pizza. And since the whole process is regimented by the “True Neapolitan Pizza Association” (I’m not kidding), the Japanese can fall into this quest to imitate, aping after something “Italian” instead of creating something interesting or excellent. Average to below-average Neapolitan pizzas are everywhere in Japan – but not so at Sabasu.
Sabasu is doing something intensely special.
Just looking at a Sabasu pizza, you can see how they have outgrown the usual definition of Neapolitan pizza.
Each of their pizzas begin with a sourdough crust.
Welcome to Sabasu, a place of naturally leavened pizza… a term that comes from ‘sourdough’ baking. Our dough is made from flour, water, and salt. Naturally occurring fementing agents, commonly known as yeast and bacteria do the rest.
— Sabasu
They go on to brag that get all their flour from Hokkaido – and as a Hokkaido pizza expert (and an amateur bread and pizza baker), I whole-heartedly approve of that choice.
Crust often makes the pizza, and the Sabasu crust is, in fact, exceptional. From our seat at the counter (always the best seat in the house), over the course of our meal we watched our pizza master make 20 pizzas or so; she started with a hefty ball of dough, working it out to a round, never stretching it too thin. You can see from the pictures, the outer rim of the crust, is thick, and well-charred from the fire.
When the pizzas come out of the oven, they cut the pie into slices with kitchen shears.
There are many choices on the Sabasu pizza menu, perhaps eight different pizzas in total.
There is the Black Garlic (more on that below). Because I like a pizza with some meat on it, the Pork Sausage with friarielli caught my eye (that is always a fantastic combination). They have a standard pepperoni (which is not common with high-end Neapolitan pizza), as well as a version with chili oil called the Spicy Boy.
On the other side of the menu, they have the more tame and traditional marinara and the margarite.
For my part, I had to try that very exotic looking “black pizza” – the Black Garlic.
Most of the iterative Napoletana pizza places offer red sauce pizza (“rossa”) or white-sauce pizzas (“bianca”). Sabasu is doing something more original as the garlic forms that dark paste that functions as the sauce-base for this particular specialty.
Black garlic from Aomori, buffalo mozzarella, maitake, eggplant, spring onion – Sabasu staple.
— Sabasu Akasaka
Building from garlic sauce, they layer on mushrooms and eggplant. The end result was a hearty pizza, earthy, and almost sweet, with big, puffy crust around the edges (blackened and crispy in spots). This is an artsy, specialty pizza, but also a pizza that is robust enough to be picked up and eaten by hand – as all pizza should.
One way that the pizza places in Tokyo differentiate themselves is with both the quality and the quantity of the toppings. Because Sabasu really stacks the buffalo mozzerella and the rest of the ingredients on each pizza, they can get heavy.
Not every slice survives being picked up, but many do. We provide some evidence in our classic “Pizza Test:”
Most definitely an exceptional pizza.
Sabasu is a fantastic pizza experience in Tokyo, and easily earns a spot as a recommendation on our Tokyo Short List. We could stop here… but we have more to show.
In addition to the “black pizza,” we also tried the Pork Sausage pizza at Sabasu.
I will confess that I liked this sausage pizza better. In addition to the pork, they add friarielli – a vegetable that deserves a proper mention, as it guest-stars in many aspects of Italian-themed dining.
Friarielli is actually a bitter Italian leafy green, but don’t let that taste profile fool you!
— Assaggio, in Boston, MA, USA
It is bitter. And to the mix of spiced-pork and the chewy sourdough crust, that bitter greens add some contrast and complexity. Truly excellent pizza.
(This combination is something you’ll find in other high-end, gourmet pizza restaurants in Japan. Here is an example of a similar combination at Dal Donnaiolo in Osaka.)
The quality of the ingredients is a big part of what makes Tokyo’s Sabasu so tasty. Sourdough bread can’t be rushed, it takes many hours to let the dough rise and the flavor develop – could be 24 hours, could be longer. To that special dough, Sabasu adds carefully sourced ingredients, and a lot of attention to detail. The buffalo mozzarella is another feature of their flavor.
Sabasu also goes heavy on the idea of “natural.”
They print “Natural Pizza” on two sides of their take-out pizza boxes (they do offer pizza to go). And on the other two sides, they print “Natural Wine.” We’ll take that a not-so-subtle move to transition…
Sabasu has an extensive wine menu; 10 pages of their menu is dedicated to vino. There is page of wine by the glass (five choices), a short list of sake by the glass, then 7 pages of bottles of wine that an be purchased, including sparkling, light white, full white, orange, rose, chilled red, red, and finaly, even more red.
Presumably much of the wine at Sabasu (if not all of it) is “natural” in some way. I wouldn’t know… I’m much more of a beer guy. Perhaps it is terribly rude of me to skip over the whole topic of wine, but I am exactly that kind of rude.
I scanned the menu for a good beer – and I found one. In fact, I found one of my favorite beers I’ve ever had in Tokyo. It was the Derwert Farmhouse Ale (from a brewery in New Zealand called Two Metre Tall); a shockingly good beer. I would not count on it being there if you ever visit, but my love for the category of “farmhouse ales” is growing.
(A farmhouse ale is a kind of sour, I believe. When I saw that style of ale on the beer menu at Sabasu, I was all over it. I was at Kamakaze in Osaka when I had my first “farmhouse ale,” which was fantastic, and a highlight of that time in Osaka. I have since had a third farmhouse ale, at curious “books and beer” spot – Adanonki in Sapporo.)
Sabasu is not “the most talked about” pizza in Tokyo, but it is popular choice; you should book your seats in advance. We got a reservation – on a Friday night – with only 24 hours notice, but we had to come early: our dinner reservation at Sabasu started at 5:30.
We were the first guests of the evening. A few minutes later, two white faces walked in – a man and his very young daughter. Then, a family of four; also white, American. Then, another couple of white women. Finally, two more white guys (American) sat next to us at the counter. This is not an “American party” bar (not at all), it’s not an “expat” place, but it was 100 percento hakujin that night.
There is so much good pizza in Tokyo, for a pizza snob like me, it’s hard to make it back to the same place twice. In writing this review, however, I am drawn back, and am scheming of excuses to spend more time in Tokyo so I can give Sabasu another go.
Totally exceptional experience. Highly recommended.
For more Tokyo Pizza see:
— Marumo Pizza restaurant in Ebisu, Tokyo
— The Pizza Bar at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Chuo City, Tokyo
— PST (Pizza Studio Tamaki) Rippongi, Minato City, Tokyo
— Savoy Pizza in Asabujuban, Minato City, Tokyo
— Devil Craft Pizza Kanda, in Chuo City, and DevilCraft Gotanda, in Shinagawa Tokyo
— Shibuya pizza at Kevelos, in Tokyo
— Frey’s Famous Pizza in Rippongi, Tokyo
— Pizzakaya in Minato City, Tokyo
— Steampunk pizza restaurant Seirinkan in Meguro, Tokyo
— Peppe’s Napoli Sta Ca Pizza in Komazawa in Setagaya, Tokyo
— Butcher Republic pizza in Ebisu, Tokyo
Pizza Slices in Tokyo
— Rocco’s Pizza in Ojihoncho, Kita City, Tokyo
— Pizza slices in Tokyo at New York Pizza Tonyz in Koto City, Tokyo
— Nim’s Pizza slices in Asabujuban in Minato City, Tokyo
— Pizza Slice in Shibuya, Cat Street location