Japanese cuisine is incredible popular world-round, and is a huge draw for travellers to this amazing country. The language barrier can make it tricky to read menus and know what to order, and the cities are so huge that it can be difficult to know where to start. This Japan food guide aims to simplify everything, so you can spend less time figuring it all out and more time eating! From the best dishes you have to try before you leave, to the best restaurants to head to in each city and the must visit areas for foodies, read on for everything you need to know about food in Japan.
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Unmissable dishes
Sushi – Let’s start with the obvious. The idea of sushi often conjures up images of maki rolls – various fish and vegetable combos wrapped in rice and then seaweed. But in Japan, sushi is most commonly a simple slice of seafood atop a small wedge of rice.
Gyoza – Dumplings of minced meat and vegetables, these are a popular side dish at ramen shops or izakayas (casual bars).
Ramen – You know ramen. You might not know just how delicious it can be from a Japanese restaurants as opposed to a student kitchen though. This quintessential dish has lots of regional variations. Loud slurping noises are highly encouraged, as this is said to cool the noodles down and enhance the flavour.
Yakitori – A staple food at street stalls or izakayas, yakitori are smiply bbq-ed chicken skewers.
Sashimi – Raw fish. That’s it. There’s nothing more to the dish, except perhaps a small soy sauce dip. Sushi is Japan’s iconic food, but the fish in here is so fresh and such high quality that I honestly preferred it without the rice.
Tempura – Battered and deep fried foods, usually seafood or vegetables, but you can find anything in tempura style, even ice cream. If breadcrumbs are added to the batter it becomes kushikatsu.
Katsu curry – Katsu is a breaded, deep fried cutlet, usually pork (tonkatsu) or chicken (chicken katsu). The curry that it’s often added to is a thick brown sauce, quite similar to British gravy. In fact, this dish is a Japanese variation on the Indian curries that were introduced into Japan by the Brits.
Katsudon – Pork katsu over rice with an egg cracked over the top at the last minute, so that it paritally fries purely from the heat of the dish. ‘Don’ means rice, so dishes that ends with -don are going to be rice based. The confusing thing, though, is that ‘udon’ means noodles, so in this case if you didn’t know the word ‘katsu’ you might think that this dish was kats-udon (something on noodles) rather than katsu-don (cutlet on rice).
Jingisukan – A dish of bbq-ed lamb and vegetables found in Hokkaido, named after Genghis Khan who brought it over from Mongolia.
Okonomiyaki – A cross between a pancake and an omelette, this is a popular local delicacy in Osaka, made of wheat flour, shredded cabbage and any toppings you might like.
Takoyaki – A snack of minced or diced octopus, pickled ginger and green onion, shaped into a ball, battered and then fried. The result is extremely gooey, occasionally chewy, and in my opinion, gross! But it is an extremely popular local street food option, so It’s worth giving it a shot and experiencing this Japanese delicacy, even if it’s just for the pride of being able to add it to your ‘weirdest things I’ve eaten while travelling’ list.
Hot pot – A pot of broth at the centre of a table, with a selection of meats, seafood, vegetables and noodles to boil, this is a common and sociable restaurant style for families and groups of friends. It’s usually an all you can eat buffet, with different price bands according to the type of meat you want. Sukiyaki (a sweet soy sauce broth) and shabu shabu (very thinly sliced meat) are the best versions to try.
Wagyu beef – Japan is known worldwide for its fish dishes, but the majority of local restaurants within the country actually specialise in steaks. Wagyu beef is the top quality and famed around the world, and very worth the splurge. Alternatively, Kobe beef comes from a town south of Osaka, for similarly delicious marbled steaks but at crazy low prices.
Sake – Also known as rice wine, Sake is a brewed liquor, typically around 15% abv.,often drunk hot or with flavouring. The key to how ‘good’ the sake is depends on how much the rice grains are polished before they are fermented. In fact, the warmed sake is often the lower quality, less polished product, while higher quality sake is more likely to be served chilled.
Shochu – A fermented liquor, with a higher strength of typically 25% abv. Not to be confused with Korean soju, shochu can be made from a range of base ingredients, resulting in a variety of flavours. At 25% (or more) though, I’d recommend experimenting with it in cocktails, rather than straight or on the rocks!
Top Foodie Areas
Tokyo
Tsukiji Outer Market
The country’s oldest and largest fishmarket. The market actually grew so large that the majority of vendors are now set up in a completely different area in Toyosu. The Tsukiji area remained as the original site, along with all the sushi restaurants that had popped up around the market over time. This is hands down the best place in Tokyo to get your sushi fix.
Omoide Yokocho
Close to Shinjuku station, tucked away next to the railway bridge, you will find two parallel alleyways. Along these lanes are a surprising number of tiny bars and restaurants. Each has a single bar surface with room for perhaps 6 people maximum seated along it. The chef will whip up some yakitori or tempura, and recommend a shochu which you can drink either hot or cold. Go at night, as many establishments are not open for lunch. Due to the lack of space you often don’t have a choice of restaurants – you just grab whatever space opens up before somebody else does! Embrace the hecticness and enjoy the ambience.
Ameyoko
A shopping district by day, this area of small streets and walkways comes alive at night. In and around (and under) the train tracks, this region is chock full of restaurants and bars, and you’re sure to find something to suit your tastes here. A particular restaurant style to try is yakiniku – barbecued meat that you cook yourself on a grill built into your table. If not too busy, restaurant owners will stand in their doorways and try to entice you in. Once inside they will often try to upsell you to the most expensive meats on the menu, but if you stand firm within your price range then you can still get some great recommendations from them. They know the best meats and the best wines on the menu. I particularly recommend plum wine, which I only discovered from a restaurant owner’s recommendation, so their opinions can be trusted!
Shinjuku Golden Gai
About the size of one modern city block, this maze of tiny streets contains around 300 small quirky bars and a handful of restaurants. The buildings are all different shapes and sizes, sometimes with one bar on the ground floor and another upstairs. It’s a great place to get lost for an evening, and just see what you might find. Many of the bars here do actually have English menus, so, while this makes it feel a little more touristy, you get a little more control over your order than some of the other locations on this list!
Osaka
Dotonburi
Osaka is Japan’s food capital, and at its heart is Dotonbori Street. The promenade runs parallel to the river and boasts eateries galore, from classic Japanese cuisine, to local delicacies, to unique creations. Most of the buildings have weird and wonderful paper mache creations of the food they serve protruding from the building walls, making walking down the street an experience in itself. Try kushikatsu at Kushikatsu Daruma. Grab an okonomiyaki from Chibo Okonomiyaki. My personal favourite was the steak sushi – thin slices of very rare, high quality kobe beef, atop a wedge of sushi rice – from just a street stall on Dotonburi Street! You never quite know what delights you will find here.
Shinsekai
This area of Osaka was developed at the beginning of the 1900s but was largely neglected for the decades following WW2. It was then revamped into a quirky downtown hub with retro signage and artwork glowing outside of modern restaurants and bustling shopping streets. There are a few sites to see here but for foodies this is the best area to try kushikatsu (head to Kushikatsu Daruma) and takoyaki (I recommend Shinsekai Kankan).
Kyoto
Nishiki Market
A covered walkway that spans five city blocks, Nishiki Market is four hundred years old and houses more than one hundred shops and restaurants. You’re not supposed to stop and stand in the walkway since the lane is so narrow, so vendors will try their best to get you inside with free samples, such as roasted chestnuts or hot chocolate. In the middle is a sort of food court, with upturned barrels as tables. These are surrounded by vendors mostly offering different types of fried seafood on a stick. If you buy anything from any of the vendors within this area you also get a free shot of two different types of sake.
Pontocho Street
This street is known for being the heart of the geisha district in Kyoto, but in more recent times Pontocho street has become a popular restaurant and bar scene. With lanterns hanging from the wooden balconies and buildings, and cobblestone alleyways branching off from the street with hidden establishments, this feels a world away from the skyscrapers of modern Japan. Head over at happy hour and grab a whiskey and ginger at Pontocho Masuda for less than one coin for two people. For food, I recommend Gyukatsu Kyoto Katsugyu Pontocho Honten.
Restaurants
Entirely by accident a lot of the restaurants we ate at and loved were chains you can find across the whole country. These are some of the best:
Yakiniku Like – Our most visited restaurants in our 3 weeks in Japan, these are Yakitori restaurants where you grill at your table. The name of the restaurant usually appears only in Japanese on the restaurant signs, but the logo Tasty! Quick! Value! appears in English in large letters, so it’s easy to spot (you can still search Yakiniku Like on google maps and find it easily). You order your cuts of meat on an interactive screen at the table, and they come in small portions so you can try lots of different ones. If you go at lunch time you can get bottomless rice.
Kura Sushi – The most high-tech conveyor belt sushi restaurant I’ve ever been to, with two sushi trains. The standard plates wind their way around the tables for you to select from, but each table also has an interactive screen for ordering a la carte. When the dish you’ve ordered is ready, it’s put onto the second conveyor belt and wizzes straight from the kitchen to your table. No waitresses needed, only ingenious technology. And once you’ve had 5 plates, you get to play a little game on the screen as you return the plates.
Gyukatsu Motomura – One particular favourite is Gyukatsu Motomura which offers various cuts of beef breaded, fried and served with local dips and sauces. This chain is incredibly popular – at every location we found there was a always a queue of hungry locals outside the building waiting for a table. I recommend going in Osaka because they had the same dishes for half price at lunch time, but this lunch deal didn’t exist at the ones we saw in Kyoto and Tokyo.
Sukiya – A gyudon (pork on rice) takeaway chain. Super quick, super cheap, delicious and huge portions. We did this as a late night takeaway a couple of times after ending up very hungry from busy days with lots of walking.
7/11 – Yes, this is a convenience store, but honestly getting dinner from here is super common. The microwave meals at all the small conveniences are actually pretty good and pretty cheap, and we saw plenty of professional couples shopping for their dinner here, not just cheap backpackers like us! 7/11, Family Mart and Lawson are the best ones to check.
The non-chain restaurants we ate at are impossible to find again because very little is in English and there are so many options, but they were all in the foodie areas I’ve listed above, and they were all incredible, you really can’t go wrong!
Bars
Izakayas – This is not a chain but a style of bar, with alcohol and tapas style snacks, very popular as an after work drinks spot. With casual pub vibes, anything that calls itself an izakaya is a good bet for a relaxed but fun time. Just be aware that lots of them are standing room only.
YATA – If sushi is the most celebrated food of Japan, then sake (rice wine) is the most celebrated drink, and a tasting at a sake bar is a great way to learn more about the Japanese drinking culture. YATA is a chain with a few locations around Tokyo, all with great atmospheres and a wide range of sake options from all over the country.
I hope this has been helpful – make sure to star these foodie areas and restaurant recommendations on google maps before visiting Japan so you can know exactly where to go for the most delicious bites as soon as you hit the ground. They’re also all starred on my own Japan google map (along with cultural and sightseeing pins) which you can download here to get you started! Let me know your favourite Japanese dish in the comments, and as always feel free to contact me for any more tips or planning help, or questions about anything. Happy travels!
Booking Resources
Hotels: Booking.com is my go-to anywhere in the world, and in Japan it’s definitely the place with the widest selection and best prices. You can also check agoda for last minute deals.
Hostels: Hostelworld is always the best site for hostels, and many are also on booking.com.
Tours: In Japan the best site to find tours and attraction tickets is klook.
Trains: Booking trains in Japan is confusing. There are packages that need to be booked direct with the main train company, JR, before arriving in the country (get in touch for help planning this!). For one off journeys you can book your tickets on klook.
Buses: Everyone thinks about train travel as the iconic way to get around Japan, but if you’re on a budget then buses are significantly cheaper and very comfortable. Book direct with Willer Express.
Car hire: I usually use localrent.com to search both international and local companies for the best deals. For hiring a car with a driver for transfers and sightseeing, check out daytrip.
Flights: For finding the best routes, Kiwi is my favourite tool to search multiple airports at once. To find the best prices, I use google flights or skyscanner.
Insurance: It’s always a good idea to have insurance. I recommend safetywing for full coverage.
eSim: If you don’t want the hassle of figuring out a local sim card, esims are a great idea. I recommend airalo.
Consultation: For expert advice and planning assistance, get in touch! I can provide personalised recommendations, as well as great deals, 24/7 customer service, and financial protection. Contact me here.
These are affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission if you use these sites to book something. There’s no additional cost to you, and I don’t recommend anything I don’t use myself. Thanks for your support!