Riding Wardrobe Aesthetic Lab:
From Tokyo to Kyushu by Road

30-1 Hagyuda-cho, one compact rental car, a Thermos of green tea, and a notebook that filled up faster than any I've ever owned. This was my Japan Sushi Highway — a self-directed pilgrimage from the fish markets of Tokyo to the coastal fishing villages of Kyushu, driven by an obsession with understanding sushi not as a luxury item but as a living tradition born from the sea and shaped by the people who still work it.

I want to be clear about what this road trip is not. It's not a Michelin-star tour. It's not omakase counters and reverent silence and three-hour tasting menus. Those experiences exist and they are extraordinary — but they don't tell you where sushi came from or why it means what it means to the people who grew up eating it. For that, you need to leave the cities and follow the coast.

"The best sushi counter I found in Japan had no name sign, six seats, and a master who'd been working the same fish for forty-two years. He didn't speak English. I didn't speak Japanese. We spoke sushi."

Day 1–2: Tokyo's Fish Market Dawn

The road trip technically begins before dawn at the outer market of Toyosu — the replacement for the legendary Tsukiji, which closed its wholesale operations in 2018. I arrive at 4:45 AM. The stalls are already full, the fishmongers mid-transaction, the tuna already being carved into obscene red slabs under fluorescent lights that make everything look both clinical and sacred simultaneously.

The first sushi of the trip comes at 6:15 AM from a tiny counter inside the market that has been serving fishmongers breakfast since 1978. The maguro is the colour of a sunset. It costs the equivalent of four euros. It is, objectively, one of the finest things I have ever put in my mouth.

Day 3–5: The Pacific Coast South

Leaving Tokyo, I take Route 135 south along the Izu Peninsula rather than the expressway. This decision adds three hours to the drive but delivers something the highway cannot: the actual coast, the fishing villages, the harbour stalls where the day's catch is sold an hour after it leaves the boat.

In Ito, a small city on the eastern Izu coast, I find the kind of sushi shop that defines the rest of this trip. A six-seat counter run by a husband and wife, both in their seventies. He makes the sushi; she pours the tea and manages the impossible warmth of a space so small that the conversation between customers becomes unavoidable and wonderful. The kinmedai — splendid alfonsino — caught in the waters I can see through the window, is unlike anything I've tasted before: sweet, oceanic, almost floral.

Day 6–8: Shikoku's Hidden Counter

The ferry from Wakayama to Tokushima cuts across Osaka Bay in the early morning, and Shikoku materialises out of fog like something from a Hiroshige print. This island is Japan's least-visited by international tourists and, for the food traveller, one of its greatest secrets.

In Kochi, I find what will become the defining meal of the trip. The city is famous for katsuo — skipjack tuna — specifically for the dish known as katsuo tataki: the fish seared over a flame of rice straw, sliced thick, served with grated ginger and ponzu. The Hirome Market in central Kochi is a covered food hall where dozens of vendors operate, and the katsuo competition between them is fierce and public. I eat at three different counters. All three are extraordinary. I eat at a fourth. It is transcendent.

Day 9–10: Kyushu's Coastal End

The road trip ends in Kagoshima, the southernmost major city on Kyushu, looking across to Sakurajima volcano smoking gently above the bay. I have now eaten at 47 sushi counters and food stalls since Tokyo. I have filled three notebooks. My car smells faintly of soy sauce and the sea.

The final sushi is from a counter near the Kagoshima fish market that opens at 5 AM to serve the night-shift fishermen. The master is 68 years old and has been making sushi at this counter since he was 22. He knows I'm leaving on a flight in four hours. He makes me a piece of amberjack that he says is the best fish in the bay right now. It is the best piece of sushi I have eaten on this trip.