AWkitchen Pasta House operates as PASTA MARCHE AWkitchen’s inside Lumine 1, the shopping complex built directly into Shinjuku Station, under the same restaurant group behind the vegetable-centric AWkitchen brand founded by chef Akira Watanabe. The format sits between a quick counter and a full sit-down restaurant: diners choose a fresh pasta dish at the entrance, pay, then wait for a buzzer before collecting their plate at a pickup counter, with a handful of small cafe-style tables for eating in.
The kitchen makes its pasta fresh in-house and rotates the menu every two to three weeks around seasonal produce, so the lineup changes through the year rather than running a fixed carte. Past seasonal dishes have included a nozawana pickled-greens, new ginger and squid peperoncino, and a Marche lunch set that bundles a pasta with soup, salad and a drink for a few hundred yen more. A takeout counter alongside the eat-in tables sells the same pastas and salads boxed to go, popular with commuters passing through the station concourse.
Being built into Lumine 1’s basement level puts it a couple of minutes’ walk from Shinjuku Station’s main exits, making it a practical stop for a fast lunch or an early dinner before a train. It keeps long, no-closed-day hours typical of station-building restaurants, and the casual self-serve format keeps the average check affordable for a quick pasta meal in one of Tokyo’s busiest transit hubs.
