Seirinkan Pizza in Meguro, Tokyo
Tokyo has many much-loved pizza restaurants. When it comes to Neapolitan style pizza, some of the most well-known include Seirinkan Pizza in Meguro (and Savoy pizza, originally started by the same owner). Beyond the pizza itself, Seirinkan Tokyo is known for some heavy-iron architecture and a strong preference for a certain 60s rock band.
Is Seirinkan sort of gimmicky? Is it a place that could easily be classified as a tourist trap (and be popular with some locals at the same time)? Yes, I think all of that is fair. But as their pizza easily qualifies as high quality, we bring you this “friendly” review.
Want to see some pictures of Seirinkan pizza? As always, “we deliver.”
Looks good, doesn’t it. I think you can find better pizza in Tokyo, for certain. But we are obviously dealing with a real contender in the local Tokyo pizza scene, and the pictures should make that clear.
Seirinkan pizza is a short walk from Naka-Meguro Station, through a great neighborhood. The pizza shop is located on a narrow, well-established street. As you arrive, you’re greeted by a rather industrial looking booking, with lots of “heavy metal” on the outside (even if the music inside is more light, classic, 60s pop).
The structure that houses Seirinkan is tall. Practically speaking, it seems unlikely that the building was built with the business in mind. I would not actually call Seirinkan “steampunk” (an aesthetic that is usually much more ornately layered with detail). The exterior is concrete and metal, each stained and weathered, like a slight stylized storehouse on a wharf.
Did the building once have another purpose? Was the architecture found or made? I’d like to know.
But… while we can love on artful building practices (maybe even on interior design), this review is about the pizza, and let’s get to it.
You like choices? What if I told you Seirinkan had 10 different pizzas to choose from? Sound good? What about 12 different pizzas? What if I suggested they had multiple categories of pizza, including several specialty pizzas you won’t find anywhere else in Tokyo?
I could say all that… but I’d be lying.
Seirinkan pizza in Tokyo has exactly three pizzas. The first two, are the most generic pizzas in all of Japan, maybe the most generic in the world. This is dead-center, “we’re not Naples, but we’re shameless trying to be that” pizza. It’s “look, look, I’m almost genuine Napolitana pizza too” pizza. It’s that… but, like, with only Beatles music, right?! I mean, am I right?! No pepperoni, but perhaps some Penny Lane?!
Am I being a jerk? Yes I am. But I can also be real for a second: did I like the pizza? I mean, kitschy aspects of Seirinkan aside; was it tasty pizza?
Yeah. Good pizza. We are clearly in the category of “successful” pizza… but in a city like Tokyo, that’s a rather low bar.
What did I order? Well…
There are all of three choices of thin-crust pizza on the menu, so we ordered all of them.
The margherita came out first. Red sauce. Mozzarella. Basil. Thin crust – maybe a little too thin (which does indeed hit that just-like-every-other-Neapolitan-pizza standard).
A margherita can be a good experience. It is also the most mechanically reproduced, and over-valued pizza in Japan. Not only in 100s of “wood oven” pizzerias, but in almost every single cafe, you’ll find claims of a margherita. Most of the them, are bare distinguishable from each other. This particular one at Seirinkan was better than most cafe-pizza, certainly. But when you aim for the dead-center-average of pizza in Japan, and you hit the target…
It’s good. Not particularly special, but good. Maybe a little better than average.
Now, let’s shake things up and take a look at the second page of the menu.
Seirinkan is not just a pizza shop, it’s an “Italian restaurant.” You know how you can tell? Lotsa pasta.
If I told you the font on the Seirinkan menu is called “Yellow Submarine,” would you believe me? Have I ever lied to you before?
You probably think I am about to be a jerk about the pasta too, don’t you? No, wait wait (literally, gimme a second), check this out…
We ordered the puttanesca.
“Puttanesca: Spaghetti, anchovy, black olives, capers, red pepper.”
Do you know where that dish gets it’s name? Never mind. Does it sound good? Yes it does. How was the taste?
It was fantastic. I’m serious, I loved the puttanesca pasta at Seirinkan. I was there with two friends, we each had some – it was painful to have to share it. I absolutely ran “clean up” on that plate, taking the last bits for myself.
While the margherita pizza was simple and forgettable, the puttanesca was simple and savory. Absolutely amazing. I am not a bigger fan of puttanesca, having tried the dish.
What was more amazing, though, was charging 3000 JPY for the worlds most simple pasta dish. It was good, yet does do you dirty in the okaikei (お会計) area. I rarely am concerned of critical about price. It is only when I see something ridiculous (or when I see a very good value) will I bring it up. In this case, the 3000 JPY is a clue to the character of Seirinkan.
The pasta dishes are so ridiculously over-priced, it makes me laugh. And those prices are why can be certain Seirinkan is a tourist trap; If you want really good pasta (and it is, in fact, really good pasta), you wouldn’t pick this place, and you’d never in your life pay that much for that dish. The reason you’re paying that much for puttanesca at Seirinkan… is because you’re a tourist. You’re there for “steampunk,” not for anything serious or sensible. And because you’re there for the wrong reasons, they can punish you all they want, and you’ll love it… if you’re into that kind of thing.
They clown themselves with that price – and clown their guest for paying it. By over-charging as they do, they take themselves out of the category of the cultivated culinary, out of the intimate, and into the experience of souvenir shop, or buying a t-shirt at rock concert at a stadium show. “Seirikan 2025 Tour.” If your dad gives you that “shirt” in 2040, it’s the coolest thing ever. If you paid for it yourself, you got robbed. You should have bought a bootleg shirt in the parking lot, for $12 bucks.
3000 JPY for 27 strands of all dente, is the price you pay to gawk at (or perhaps join?) the Seirinkan Circus. “Here is your clown nose, and your squeaky shoes.” You pay 3000 JPY for pasta – that was designed to be thrown togethers in minutes – when the meal also includes a “magic show,” a “burlesque” act, or “lazer art” (or lazer tag, for that matter). Seirinkan transgresses into spectacle. While we enjoy novelty, and we point, and take pictures, Seirinkan is neither causal and cool, not a high-end pizza experience.
(I was a jerk about the pasta, after all. True. But I did first say something heartfelt and nice.)
There is, of course more pizza.
There was a marinara. Which is the only pizza which can make a margherita feel superior. I think I probably liked the marinara at Seirinkan better. But… swapping out cheese for garlic, there isn’t much to it, and very little chance to make an impression.
(I have had an extraordinary marinara, though. Off the top of my head, I would jump in the car with you, right now, and run across town, in a hot second, for the marinara at Da Massimo in Sapporo. That pizza is also a stripped-down Naples “classic,” but Da Massimo finds a way make a statement. I have eaten these otherwise generic pizzas and found them memorable – but not this one, not Seirinkan, not particularly).
However… hold on, wait a minute; I’m about to be nice again.
With three grown men at the table, American men (and American men have two stomachs, everyone knows that), we tore through the first pizza, and that over-priced dreamboat of a pasta dish, and… we were still hungry. That isn’t a complaint, that is just a fact. As there was just one pizza left we hadn’t ordered, it was time to try that one too.
We ordered the Bianca pizza at Seirinkan.
“Bianca Pizza: Mozzarella cheese, pecorino cheese.”
That’s it. Probably some olive oil (from a brass pitcher, you know, “authentic style”). There is even fewer ingredients on that pizza, and yet…
That was a great pizza. The Bianca pizza at Seirinkan was really good. Maybe “great” is saying a little too much for what is basically cheese bread. But it was thoroughly enjoyable, my favorite of the three. That one, I would eat again.
As the Official Pizza Czar of Japan, I like to run every pizza I eat by my patented “pizza test:” Can you pick it up? This particular slice, having cooled, and the cheese returned to a unified state, was in fact capable of being picked up. Do not try that with either of the red-sauce models; this is not usually “pick it up” pizza.
The food was fine (except for that pasta, which was heartbreakingly good… the kind of pasta you think about, when you’re older, and maybe after your dreams have failed to come true, and you wonder what “could have been,” and what just might have happened, if things had been different…). Would I go back? What do you think?
Rumor has it that the man behind the Seirinkan name previously founded the Savoy pizza chain. Something like that. Savoy, in my arrogant opinion, is a better experience than this place. And if you actually want good pizza, you can do much better still.
I think Frey’s Pizzeria makes a better pizza than Seirinkan. So does Sabasu pizza in Akasaka– Sabasu is much better, all around, certainly much more interesting. I would much rather have a Kevelos Pizza in Shibuya than this place. PST in Rippongi is truly remarkable pizza, in an entirely higher category than Seirinkan. And Pizza Marumo in Ebisu – wow. All of those choices offer a better flavor, much more in the way of choices that might be special, but… admitted, a little less “Rocky Racoon” (if that is really what you came for).
Tokyo has so many truly special experiences, I cannot recommend this one. But if I ever had to go back, I would eagerly step into that Bianca pizza. If I was feeling flush and fancy, I might even order that 3000 JPY pasta as well.
For more Tokyo Pizza see:
— The exceptional Marumo Pizza in Ebisu, Tokyo
— Pizza Bar on 38th for chef’s choice omakase pizza at Kshiki in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel
— Pizza Studio Tamaki in Rippongi, Tokyo
— Sabasu Pizza in Akasaka, Tokyo
— Savoy Pizza Domi-LA in Asabujuban, in Minato City, Tokyo
— Devil Craft Pizza in Kanda, in Chuo City, and deep-dish pizza at Gotanda DevilCraft in Shinagawa, Tokyo
— Shibuya pizza at Kevelos, in Tokyo
— Pizzakaya Pizza in Rippongi, Tokyo
— Frey’s Famous Pizza in Rippongi, Tokyo
— Pizzeria da Peppe Napoli Sta’ Ca” Komazawa in Setagaya City, Tokyo
— Ebisu Butcher Republic in Tokyo
Pizza Slices in Tokyo
— NY-style pizza slices at Rocco’s Pizza in Kita City, Tokyo
— New York Pizza Tonyz Tokyo in Koto City, Tokyo
— Pizza slices at Nim’s in Azabujuban, in Minato City, Tokyo
— Cat Street Pizza Slice restaurant in Shibuya