Yasuke Tsurube Sushi Restaurant (oldest sushi restaurant in Japan)

Recognized as Japan's oldest continuously operating sushi restaurant, tracing its roots back some 800 years and famously depicted as the setting of the "Sushi Shop" scene in the kabuki masterpiece Yoshitsune Senbonzakura. The current three-story wooden building was rebuilt in 1939 after a fire, and its calm, history-steeped tatami dining rooms overlook a cliffside mountain garden. The kitchen, now run by the 50th-generation head of the family, specializes in ayu (sweetfish) kaiseki using wild ayu from the Kii River system, with salt-grilled ayu and grilled ayu sansho sushi as signature dishes, alongside seasonal whole young ayu sushi.