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If it seems an unlikely choice—surely Japanese food should be a priority?—rest assured that this is the hottest dining spot in town, sometimes booked months in advance. Long before Bill Murray made the bar internationally famous with his late night whiskey-drinking sessions in Lost in Translation, it had achieved local notoriety as Tokyo’s coolest place to hang out, sample cocktails, listen to a live jazz band and enjoy that view. The favored few snag reservations to eat at the Grill, where juicy steaks, including the famous cut-with-a-fork-tender Kobe beef, are the specialty. Prices at this special-occasion venue, where most diners are celebrating promotions, done deals, engagements, anniversaries and birthdays, are stratospherically high. Do at least try to sneak a peek, by having a drink at the bar.

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The flagship restaurant of the city’s newest and trendiest hotel, Peter is named after the Peninsula group’s long-serving chief executive, Peter Borer, a man who has never been afraid to push the boundaries of the hotel business. Peter was designed by über-chic New York firm Yabu Pushelberg, which had the advantage of working with a stunning dining room blessed with 360-degree vantages over the city. Look toward the interior and you are in Hong Kong, sort of, facing giant projected images of the hotel group’s home city. The dramatic decor, which marries the theme of purple and lavender with wood and steel, provides plenty of conversational fodder before the food. The signature dishes of chef Patrice Martineau are Hokkaido zuwaigani crab, Yonesawa confit beef brisket and warm pineapple-coconut baba cake. After dinner service on the weekend, the restaurant turns into a club where a female disc jockey spins hip-hop, R&B and disco beats. Owing to their innate love of the new and different, Tokyoites have made it one of the hottest tickets in town.