Ichiran Ramen Restaurant

Tucked away below street level, Ichiran is a small, cozy ramen shop that you reach by walking downstairs. The space is compact, which often means a wait of around 15–30 minutes, especially during peak hours. However, the line moves steadily, and the experience is absolutely worth the wait. Before being seated, you’ll order from a vending machine, where you can easily select your ramen and any extra toppings. After that, you’re given a customization sheet to fill out, allowing you to choose exactly how you want your bowl prepared—spice level, richness of the broth, garlic amount, and noodle firmness. This personalized approach makes the meal feel special and tailored just for you. Seating is typically in individual booths, giving you a focused and unique dining experience centered entirely on the ramen. And the ramen truly delivers. The broth is rich, flavorful, and deeply satisfying, perfectly complementing the tender slices of pork and springy noodles cooked to your preferred firmness. Every spoonful is comforting and well-balanced. Overall, Ichiran offers not just delicious ramen but a memorable dining concept. Despite the wait and small space, the quality and customization make it a must-visit for ramen lovers.

Delicious ramen. Highly recommended. The restaurant is in the basement of the building (you need to walk one level underground) and gets extremely crowded during lunch time with longer waits. We were fortunate to reach there just before the crowd came in. When you enter, you need to select your meal on a kiosk and collect the tickets. In the queue, you need to pick up the forms on the table where you select options (broth richness, garlic, spice, meat/no-meat) etc. to customize your meal. You then get option to select table seating or counter. We selected counter seating which is more secluded from the crowds outside and in my opinion a more fun experience. At the counter, you can select some more additions using the forms placed in your space and the call button.

Classic Ichiran experience done perfectly. The tonkotsu ramen here is rich, creamy, and incredibly flavourful without being too heavy. I chose level 5 spiciness and absolutely loved it — just the right kick to enhance the broth without overpowering the pork flavour. The noodles had great texture, the broth was silky smooth, and everything tasted perfectly balanced. Service was efficient and well-organised even with a queue, and the clear rules help keep things fair for everyone. The solo booth seating lets you focus fully on the ramen, which makes the experience even better. Conveniently located in Asakusa and perfect after a visit to Senso-ji. Consistently delicious, satisfying, and definitely worth the wait. Highly recommended for ramen lovers. 🍜🔥

This little place was great! Just a short stroll from the temple nearby. I don’t speak Japanese but I had no trouble, the little ordering thing had English version and the staff were great. They had a little sheet with common phrases in English they pulled out when they were seating people to communicate things and a photo of the normal tables vs the little one person quiet booths so people could point at they type they wanted. They made it seamless! The ramen was delicious! I ordered way too to much and couldn’t finish it but would have eaten it all if I could have :) Sitting in the quiet booth was great as a solo traveller who struggles to use chopsticks 😅 It was an introverts dream! I went about 4.30 and there was only a very small queue but as I was leaving at about 5.30 there was a lot more people lined up. So maybe good to do earlier dinner if you don’t like queuing!

We arrived around 12:30pm as a family of four and only had a short queue ahead of us. After about five minutes, we reached the vending machine, placed our order, filled out the preference sheet, and were asked whether we preferred a dining table or counter seats. Once seated, we brought our order sheet to the counter and were given a buzzer that would beep when our food was ready. The broth was rich and comforting, and we finished everything quickly. The ramen can be customized to your liking such as richness, noodle texture, spiciness, and more.