Recommended bowl: Elite level

Open since November 2016, Sakurai in Mitaka serves up high-quality bowls of shoyu, shio and niboshi ramen. The master, who's still in his late twenties, says he's trying to make refined comfort ramen that you can eat every day. The soup is composed of two varieties of chickens from Hakata and Oyama, mixed with pork bones, shiitake mushrooms, Nagasaki niboshi, Hokkaido konbu and several kinds of katsuo. The shoyu tare contains six different soy sauces sourced from around Japan. Kaedama refills are available for the niboshi ramen. No MSG. Elite-level shop.