The Tokugawa shogunate strictly limited the numbers of bridges across important rivers for defensive purpose, and allowed only four or five bridges across the Sumida river. As a result, areas around the bridges were always crowded with pedestrians, and highly commercialized with shops and restaurants. Restaurants also favored the riverside locations for panoramic views and water transport.
Ryōgoku area, around the west end of Ryōgoku bridge, was one of the busiest commercial districts in the city, and had famous restaurants like Manpachi-rō, Kamesei and Kawahan, along with geisha houses in Yanagibashi. Asakusa, around the west end of Azuma bridge, was busy with visitors to Sensō-ji temple and the Yoshiwara pleasure district, and home to a lot of restaurants, including Yaozen, the most high-end in all of the city (recently reopend in Kamakura). There were also concentrations of restaurants in Fukagawa, at the east end of Eitai bridge, Ueno, at the foot of Kanei-ji temple, and Nihonbashi, in the heart of the city.
High-end restaurants in Edo served as gathering places for bunjin (literati) communities, mainly wealthy merchants and middle-class samurai, and regularly hosted ku-kai (poetry gatherings) and shoga-kai (caligraphy and painting gatherings). Daimyo families usually used shidashi (catering) service.
Complicated terminology aside, those restaurants served what we call kaiseki meals, mainly made of seafood and vegetable. Meat was not widely eaten for the religious reason. There were also unagi (eel), soba and sushi restaurants, but they were generally considered fast food.
When Matthew Perry visited Edo Bay to open the country in 1854, the shogunate held a banquet in Yokohama. The meal was served by Nihonbashi restaurant Momokawa in honzen style, the more formal form of kaiseki meal, and consisted of 11 trays including sashimi, soups, grilled fish, kamaboko and grilled sea bream. Though it was prepared as extravagant as they could, the American guests found it meager, poor and unevaluable due to the little seasoning and the lack of meat.