This is a ranking list covering serious restaurants within Edo. Promoters include "Yaoya Zenshirō" also known as "Yaozen", an owner of the high-end restaurant that was loved by many educated men.

Since the beginning of the Bunka/Bunsei eras (1804-1830), many ranking lists that give an insight into the food culture in Edo in those days were published. This ranking is one of them, with Tagawa-ya, a famous catering restaurant in front of Daion-ji temple (in Ryūsen, Taitō ward) as the top-ranked restaurant in the east, and Kawaguchi, a Japanese style luxury restaurant in Hashiba (in Taitō ward) as the top in the west. Hashiba was an elegant place along the Sumida river with many vacation houses of wealthy merchants and luxury Japanese restaurants.
"Kayaba-chō Iseta" written in the center of referees refers to the restaurant Iseya Tahei in front of Kayaba-chō Yakushi-mae (Koto-bashi bridge in Sumida ward). This restaurant offered Tsukudani (food boiled down in soy sauce) to visitors who had come to worship at Sumiyoshi Shrine (in Tsukuda, Chūō ward) as something to go with young sake, and developed it into one of the local specialties in Edo.