Ceramic shop sells classic ramen bowl on Kappabashi Street in Tokyo

The Komatsuya ceramics shop has been selling its wares since 1909, from its location on Kappabashi Dogugai Street in Taito Ward, Tokyo. The entire street is lined with shops offering various restaurant supplies.

At Komatsuya, the shelves along the six-meter-high walls are lined with bowls and plates tied together with plastic string.

“It’s an efficient way to store them. It also helps restaurants ensure that we have enough supplies, since they need a lot of the same bowl or dish,” said Kentaro Moto, 70, the fourth-generation owner of Komatsuya. Moto said that in the past, they used straw ropes instead of plastic ropes and burned them after use.

The shop’s first owner was from Komatsu, Ishikawa Prefecture, famous for its Kutani porcelain. He moved to Tokyo to sell the traditional crafts he was proud of, but found it difficult to sell because the pieces were too expensive and flamboyant for everyday use.

He soon decided to switch to affordable tableware and began selling it wholesale to restaurants in and around the Asakusa district of Tokyo.

The second-generation owner of Komatsuya was an avid businessman. He turned his attention to ramen bowls around the end of the Taisho era (1912-1926), designed a raimon motif—a type of spiral pattern considered lucky in China—and applied it to the rims of the bowls.

The shop soon received many orders from Chinese restaurants for the bowl, and the piece also became a standard product for ramen restaurants.

A ramen bowl from around 1960 that is in the store has a diameter of 18 centimeters, slightly smaller than ramen bowls today. The reason is said to be that many people at that time at restaurants ate ramen standing up and there was a preference for bowls that could be easily held in the hand.

Komatsuya offers about 2,500 types of tableware. Of these, about 500 are for Chinese cuisine, and they account for half of the store’s turnover. The store’s customers come from many places in Japan, including Yokohama Chinatown.

Thanks to its location in the old center of Tokyo, Komatsuya is visited by about 200 foreign tourists per day. According to Moto, Americans like products in bright colors, while the French prefer chic blue and white designs.

“For foreigners, Kappabashi is a theme park. We have many regular customers,” said a smiling Moto, who is also the chairman of the local merchants association.

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Komatsuya

Address: 2-21-6 Nishi-Asakusa, Taito Ward, Tokyo

Access: Five minutes walk from Tawaramachi Station on the Ginza Line

Opening hours: Open Monday to Saturday from 8:45am to 5:45pm and on Sundays and public holidays from 10am to 5pm.