A New Food Hall in Brooklyn Specializes in Japanese Foods

Japan Village is now open in Brooklyn, N.Y., with Japanese food in the form of food stalls, an izakaya restaurant and a grocery store.

The 20,000-square-foot market offers a rich look at Japan’s food culture with stalls that sell everything from soba and udon noodles made daily to Japanese street food such as takoyaki. A liquor store has Japanese sake and whiskey on its shelves, and the izakaya restaurant and bar dishes out options such as grilled chicken skewers and sashimi. Japan Village’s food vendors span from bakeries making Japanese breads, cakes and teas to a tonkotsu ramen stall. Additionally, a Japanese juice and salad bar focuses on vegetables such as shiso and komatsuna.

The grocery store is called Sunrise Mart and offers shoppers a varied selection of Japanese products, a butcher shop and tofu market.

“We want it to feel like you’re in a market in Japan, not like a Japanese grocery store in Manhattan,” Takuya Yoshida told Eater in an interview, adding that Japanese music plays throughout the space. “All of our food is food you would typically find in Japan. It’s not Asian fusion or anything like that.”

Tony Yoshida, the other half of the team who owns and operates the store is already planning an expansion, signing on for an extra 20,000 square feet of space inside the complex. That extra space, on the second floor of the building, will turn into a Japanese retail center where shoppers can get artisanal products like pottery, and cosmetics. Perhaps it will become a new competitor to Muji?