Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on July 2010

Life must be tougher than we’d thought for Tokyo’s dwindling population of wheezers. We’re not sure how else to explain the need for Tokyo no Kin’en Dekiru Resutoran, a new guidebook of restaurants where you’re allowed to smoke. The pocket-sized tome features a total of 202 “well-known establishments where you can enjoy good food and tobacco,” listed according to cuisine and accompanied by notes on the kind of smoking area provided. You can spark up wherever you like in Xex Daikanyama and Kagurazaka’s L’Alliance, but you’ll have to take it out onto the terrace at Ebisu’s Rabelais, and there are just four smoking seats available at Restaurant Rick in Roppongi. The book also includes interviews with Soh Kumamoto, the nicotine-fiend proprietor of Soh’s Bar for Miserable Smokers in Furano, Hokkaido, and actor Shunji Fujimara (Death Note), who swapped cigarettes for cigars when his doctor told him to quit.

¥840, 182pp. Available at bookstores throughout the city.