I’m in Tokyo at the end of one of the music scene’s biggest months for international gigs. Artists such as Tom Tom Club, Carl Craig and Gerd Janson have come here to perform for the Red Bull Music Academy. Elsewhere, Seth Troxler is playing at super-club Womb while Wild Beasts are lined up to play the Hostess Weekender festival. But as the city is throbbing to the beat of these musicians, I’m more interested in which of Tokyo’s 88,000 restaurants (plus more Michelin stars than any other city – sorry, Paris) the bands and DJs are going to be eating in.

Local music promoters are famed for showing off the city in one perfect meal, in places well away from the regular tourist trail. “When you only have a night or two in Tokyo, we want to show artists why this is the best city in the world for food,” says Tokyo-raised, London-based Hiroki Shirasuka, of Giant Men Management. Hiroki makes regular trips to Japan with his musicians, Anna Calvi, Mount Kimbie and Oneman, and he also makes it his mission to highlight the best of his nation’s cuisine.

Hiroki offers to take me on a culinary tour, and the first stop is Uoshin in Shibuya. “This is the first restaurant I always come to in Tokyo,” he says, “and the one that all the bands want to go to as well – Mount Kimbie love it here. It’s really relaxed and welcoming for the first night.” We are led through the busy izakaya (a casual bar and kitchen) to a table and handed the menu, obviously all in Japanese. Translating it is a problem I thankfully don’t have to face. Hiroki orders for us, and, washing it down with beers and umeshu – plum liqueur – we work our way through the menu.

We are served the freshest sashimi, picked up just hours ago at the fish market across the city. Delicate, panko-fried oysters burst with an intense rich and salty flavour. Even the raw jellyfish with plum is worth trying – though its strange cartilagey texture might not be to most tastes. The bill comes and it’s less than £25 per person for a meal that would have cost £100 a head back home.

Next, we head to a yakitori place, Joumon, which specialises in all things chicken, skewered and grilled. A yakitori meal is really sociable – perfect for musicians and locals who haven’t met before to hit it off – and to prove it we’re joined by the Mercury Prize-nominated DJ and producer Jon Hopkins, who is in Japan for a festival appearance. Asked to remove our shoes, we pad through the lively grill area which is billowing out sweet, meaty smoke. “It’s like Japanese tapas,” says Hiroki, as we take our floor-level table. “If it’s good, you just order it again.” This is done by banging the tables with your fists and yelling “Sumimasen!” to get passing waiters’ attention.

Raw white cabbage dressed in ponzu acts as a bed for chicken hearts, chicken skin and almost-raw chicken with wasabi. There’s also flavoursome pork belly and mushroom skewers. Bang! “Sumimasen!” We order more. Jon is happy he’s had a good feast for his last night in Tokyo. “And all this time I’ve been living off snacks from the 7-11 near my hotel,” he jokes.

The Golden Gai area in Shinjuku is not usually frequented by tourists. Our insider guides us through the maze of alleyways, crammed with more than 200 five-seater bars, all on top of each other. There’s every theme imaginable: a Matthew Barney bar, a venue filled with gurning toy trolls and a horror-movie hangout. We’re off to Ramen Nagi, an eight-seater restaurant said to sell the best ramen in Tokyo.

Hiroki has previously taken artist Untold here, after it was recommended by a local producer called Albino Sound. “You spot this place by the queue outside,” he says. “After a night drinking at the experimental noise bar a few doors up, this place is so good.” Tickets are bought from the machine outside, punching in whether you want the ramen topped with pork, spring onion, seaweed or eggs, then you collect the slip to take inside. It’s silent when we enter, apart from the slurping of the rich, fish-based broth with unusual flat noodles – so we join in the orchestra by swilling, gulping and splashing.

At the start of the trip I was told by a promoter that it’s almost impossible to get a bad meal in this city. He was right. Perhaps it’s finally time to become “big in Japan” and get that tour locked down – anything to keep eating all the incredible food on offer.

Essentials

Laura Martin flew to Tokyo with Virgin Atlantic (from £550, virgin-atlantic.com).She stayed in a four-bed apartment, £120 a night (airbnb.com). She ate at Uoshin, Shimada Bldg, 1F, 2-25-5 Dogenzaka, Shibuya; Joumon, 5-9-17 Roppongi, Minato-ku; and Ramen Nagi, 2F, Shinjuku Golden Gai (G2 Street), 1-1-10 Kabukicho, Shinjuku