Tonchin – Tokyo's tonkotsu broth, perfected on West 36th Street

Tonchin sits on a narrow stretch of West 36th Street, two blocks from Herald Square and a few doors from the century-old chophouse Keen's, in the part of Midtown that still trades briskly in garment racks and luggage by day. It is the American flagship of a ramen house founded in Tokyo in 1992 by brothers Katsuhiro and Motohiro Sugeno, and it holds the MICHELIN Guide's Bib Gourmand distinction, the award given for cooking of real quality at a modest price. Katsuhiro's sons, Toui and Anan Sugeno, opened this branch on 15 November 2017, bringing to New York the same tonkotsu broth, hand-kneaded noodles and izakaya plates that had already built the Sugeno name across close to twenty restaurants in Tokyo, Shanghai, Taiwan and Bangkok. A second New York outpost followed in Brooklyn in the summer of 2022, and a first West Coast room has since opened in Los Angeles' Larchmont Village, but the Midtown address remains the one regulars mean when they say they're meeting at Tonchin.

01The room and the setting

The dining room is dim and close-set, built around booths and plain wooden tables lined against walls painted a deep indigo, a collaboration between the Brooklyn design studios LMNOP and Carpenter + Mason. A hand-woven curtain by the textile studio Salt and Still separates the open kitchen from the seating, the ceramic lampshades are the work of Brooklyn potter Helen Levi, and even the staff uniforms were cut by the workwear label Peels.

The washrooms carry a noodle-patterned wallpaper designed by LMNOP, and the bar is topped in a single slab of marble, a quieter flourish among the room's otherwise spare, concrete-and-indigo palette. It is a tight 60-seat space, built to run fast through a Midtown lunch rush and then slow down for an evening crowd ordering wings and sake.

02The family behind the broth

Tonchin began as a single small shop that brothers Katsuhiro and Motohiro Sugeno built from nothing in Tokyo in 1992, convinced that ramen deserved the same curiosity and craft as any other cooking. Twenty-five years on, Katsuhiro's son Anan Sugeno, together with his brother Toui, pushed the family's ramen west, opening this Midtown room as Tonchin's first restaurant in the United States.

Insider tip

Open daily 11:30am–10pm; a few doors from Keen's Steakhouse near Herald Square.

In the kitchen, the Sugeno brothers work alongside chef Masaru Tada to keep the cooking rooted in Tokyo technique even as the menu bends toward Manhattan appetites, from cocktail-hour wings to a vegan miso broth.

03The cooking

The house broth is a Tokyo tonkotsu, but a lighter one than the thick, bone-heavy pork soups most diners expect: a pork base is simmered slowly with chicken bones and vegetables, then finished with dark soy sauce to pull out umami without the usual density. The result is rich but drinkable to the last spoonful.

The noodles are wavy and medium-thick, hand-massaged for texture and seasoned with a touch of dashi, and the kitchen breaks with ramen-shop convention by making them fresh every single day rather than resting the dough over several stages, a decision the restaurant says keeps the noodle itself tasting of something.

04What to order

The Classic Tokyo Tonkotsu is the benchmark bowl: homemade noodles, roasted chashu, egg, negi, menma and nori in that dashi-finished pork broth. The Smoked Dashi version adds clams, smoked fish oil and tobiko for a briny, almost chowder-like edge, while the Spicy Tan Tan brings niku miso, cashew nuts and chilli into the same broth base.

Among the starters, the Tebasaki chicken wings, finished with white and pink pepper and teriyaki, and the pan-fried Gyoza are signature plates found at every Tonchin location worldwide. The Tsukune buns, the Original Tsukemen dipping noodles, and a rotating kakigori shaved ice in mango, matcha or espresso flavours round out a meal that rarely strays from the kitchen's own classics.

05Wine, sake and cocktails

The bar list runs to a notable sake selection and an interesting short wine list, but the house specialises in ramen-shop cocktails built around Japanese ingredients: a Hinoki Apple made with hinoki-infused vodka and pear syrup, and a Wasabi Vodka Tonic with a genuine, sinus-clearing kick of horseradish heat.

06The neighbourhood

Tonchin stands a few doors from Keen's Steakhouse, the 1885 chophouse famous for its ceiling of clay pipes, in a stretch of Midtown West that The Infatuation's guide to the area files under eating in the Garment District. The closest subway stop is 34th Street–Herald Square, putting Macy's, Penn Station and the Empire State Building within easy walking distance before or after a bowl.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.