Men Louis: Finally, Great Ramen Near Shinagawa Station
Shinagawa Station Finally Has a Ramen Shop Worth Stopping For
Finding good ramen near Shinagawa Station has always been harder than it should be. It's one of Tokyo's busiest hubs, yet the ramen options have mostly been convenient but forgettable.
Men Louis (麺Louis) changes that. It's a three-minute walk from the Takanawa exit and serves two very good bowls of clear chicken-based ramen.
Shinagawa's Ramen Problem
When I was growing up in South Tokyo, Shinagawa was one of "our" stations. I passed through it more times than I can count, but I never found a ramen shop there I'd go out of my way for.
The best bowl in the area, in my opinion, has been Waka over in Kita-Shinagawa. It's worth the trip, but it is a trip, and not what you want with 30 minutes before your shinkansen.
A King's Ramen in an Old-School Yokocho
Men Louis is on the second floor of Shinagawa Yokocho, a building styled like the narrow postwar drinking alleys you still find around Shimbashi and Yurakucho, with lanterns, cramped corridors, and small shopfronts packed close together. It feels a little like a set, but a fun one.
The name comes from Louis, a fictional French king, which tells you the shop doesn't take itself too seriously even if the ramen is serious. Look around inside and you'll notice bottles lined up with regulars' names on them. That's because Men Louis becomes an izakaya at night. At lunch, though, it's all about ramen.
Shio or Shoyu? Why Not Both
Both bowls start from the same base: a chicken broth extracted with careful temperature control, then blended with a seafood broth. The result is a clear soup, where the chicken comes first and the seafood keeps rolling in behind it. The seasoning is where the two split.
The shio uses a blend of several carefully chosen salts, and the shop's own notes say they were going for a rounded flavor. That's exactly how it drinks. It's bright and it lets the chicken and seafood do the talking. If I had to pick one, it would be this one.
The shoyu tare combines several soy sauces with dried ingredients, and the shop says it took over ten years to get it where they wanted. You can taste that work. It's naturally tangier than the shio, with more savory weight on the finish. On another day I could easily flip my answer.
The noodles are thin and chosen to match the soup.
Final Thoughts
Men Louis isn't trying to reinvent ramen. It's a well-made chintan (clear-broth) shop in exactly the place Tokyo needed one. Whether you're grabbing a bowl before a shinkansen or just stuck near the station at lunch, this is now where I'd send you.
Start with the shio, come back for the shoyu, and maybe stick around one night to see who those bottles belong to.
If you're planning more ramen stops around Tokyo, my Tokyo Ramen Guide Book covers the shops I keep going back to, neighborhood by neighborhood.
