Wanwan Sakaba

What Wanwan Sakaba is

Wanwan Sakaba is a Japanese tavern at Londres 209 in Colonia Juárez, Mexico City, on the Zona Rosa side of the neighbourhood. A sakaba is a Japanese drinking house, and the room is built for that: a long U-shaped counter facing an open kitchen, sake bottles and Japanese signage on the walls, staff calling out greetings as people arrive, and extra seating on the upper floors and terrace when the ground floor is full.

It has been open since 2016 and it is one of the small number of Japanese-owned and Japanese-run places in central Mexico City, which is the reason it gets recommended. The everyday menu is izakaya food, with ramen as the anchor, not a sushi counter.

The reason to plan a specific visit is the tuna. On Fridays at 13:00 a whole maguro arrives and the chef breaks it down at the bar, start to finish, in front of whoever is sitting there. Nothing is narrated. You watch, and then you order raw fish from the menu that came off that fish.

Who runs it

The restaurant is run by a Japanese couple who have been behind it since it opened in 2016: the chef, known to regulars as IMA, and his wife Chiaki Imaizumi. Their stated approach is traditional Japanese home and tavern cooking rather than a fusion menu, which shows in the teishoku sets, the bento boxes and the sake selection more than in the sushi.

How the menu works

There is a printed à la carte menu, available every day, and on Fridays there is an additional and unwritten layer: the fish from that morning’s tuna.

• Ramen: the everyday order. Nagahama and stamina miso styles, plus abura soba, which is ramen served without broth.
• Teishoku: set meals with rice, miso soup, pickles and green tea, with a choice of main such as fried chicken, shrimp, ginger pork or sautéed beef. The cheapest way to eat well here.
• Donburi and bento: rice bowls and boxes with tempura, salmon, tuna or breaded pork.
• Raw fish: sashimi and nigiri, which is what the Friday tuna feeds.
• Other counter food: katsu sando, gyoza, tempura, curry, and Korean dishes including bulgogi and tteokbokki.
• To drink: a long sake list, Japanese beer and shochu.

What I ate on a Friday

The chef worked through the fish first: off with the head, out with the cheeks, the body split in half, then the meat scraped off the spine. That last part is called nakaochi and everyone at the bar got a taste of it. Apart from that one moment, nothing was explained and nobody performed.

What I ordered afterwards was the maguro sashimi mix, which the chef recommended, at 580 pesos, about 35 dollars, and nigiri from the same fish. Sea urchin had been delivered that day too, at about 16 dollars for a single nigiri. There were fewer tuna dishes on the list than I expected. The best plate of the day was not raw at all: a fried tuna piece for about 10 dollars that tasted better than anything else I had.

One practical thing about the timing. The bar was fully booked for the start of the cutting, but by the time the fresh cuts were actually ready to serve, most of those people had eaten their noodles and left. If you are here for the fish rather than the spectacle, arriving once the cutting is over is the better plan, which is the other reason to ask what time it starts.

What it costs

Prices are in Mexican pesos, observed in August 2026, and the raw fish prices depend on the day’s fish.

Item	Price
Maguro sashimi mix	580 MXN, about 30 USD
Three nigiri from the same tuna	340 MXN, about 18 USD
Sea urchin nigiri, when delivered that day	about 305 MXN each, 16 USD
Fried tuna piece	about 190 MXN, 10 USD
Ramen or teishoku set, per person	about 300 to 500 MXN, 17 to 28 USD

Two different bills live in this restaurant. A ramen or set-meal lunch is an inexpensive neighbourhood meal in the 300 to 500 peso band. A tuna-day sashimi and nigiri order with sake is two to three times that. Decide which visit you are making before you sit down.

Do you need a reservation

For a regular lunch or dinner, a walk-in is usually fine, though the counter fills from about 20:00 on Thursday to Saturday.

• For the Friday tuna, book. The bar seats with a clear view of the work go first.
• Phone or WhatsApp: +52 55 5514 4324.
• Instagram: @wanwansakaba, which is also where the tuna dates and the cutting time are confirmed.

Upper floors and the terrace take the overflow when the main room is full, but they are not where you want to be on tuna day.

Getting there

• Address: Londres 209, Colonia Juárez, Cuauhtémoc, Mexico City 06600.
• Neighbourhood: the Zona Rosa end of Juárez, a busy area of bars and restaurants.
• Metro: Insurgentes on Line 1 is a few minutes on foot. Sevilla on Line 1 is a short walk in the other direction.
• Metrobús: the Avenida Insurgentes corridor stops at the Glorieta de Insurgentes nearby.
• On foot: about ten minutes from the Paseo de la Reforma and the Ángel de la Independencia.
• Parking: street parking is difficult in Zona Rosa. Take the Metro or a taxi.

Before you go

• Friday is the day. The hour is not settled. The times quoted for the cutting do not agree with each other, so call or message before you build a day around it. A fish delivery can move as well.
• Come after the cutting if you want the fresh cuts rather than the butchery. The bar empties once people have eaten their noodles, and that is when the fish reaches the counter.
• It is genuine butchery. Skip it if you are vegetarian or squeamish; you can still eat the fish later in the day.
• Ask the chef what to order from the tuna. The sashimi mix was his recommendation and it was the right call.
• Do not overlook the cooked food. The fried tuna was the best thing on my table, and the ramen and teishoku are why locals come the rest of the week.
• Pair it with the neighbourhood. RANMA is the other Japanese counter a few streets away in Juárez, and Wok’ando is the cheap Asian lunch option nearby.
• Check the hours before you go. The hours on this page come from the venue’s public listings, which drift, so confirm on Google Maps or the venue’s own channels before a special trip.

Watch the visit

The reel above is the short version of the tuna being broken down and the plates that came off it. For the rest of the city, open my map or browse the Mexico City recommendations.