Sushi leads Japan's most popular dishes, followed by ramen, tempura, sukiyaki, okonomiyaki, takoyaki, udon, soba, tonkatsu, yakitori, gyoza and curry rice, with regional favourites such as Hiroshima okonomiyaki, Hakata tonkotsu ramen and Kobe beef pulling in travellers from across the country. Most of them cost little outside high-end restaurants, and many are best eaten at a counter where you watch the cook work. If Japan is on your list, working through these dishes is one of the most rewarding parts of the trip.
This guide explains 21 dishes worth ordering, grouped into six categories by how they are eaten: rice and seafood, noodles, grilled and fried food, street snacks, home-style comfort food and sweets. For each one you get what it is, how locals eat it, the region that does it best and a practical tip for ordering. It is written for first-time visitors from any country, including those with dietary limits, which are covered near the end.
Japan's traditional food culture, washoku, was added to UNESCO's list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in December 2013. The listing honours the home-cooking traditions behind a meal of rice, soup and seasonal side dishes, especially at New Year, and no single restaurant dish. All 47 prefectures have local dishes of their own. Many of the most popular foods below, such as ramen, curry rice and gyoza, arrived from abroad and were reshaped in Japan over the last century, which is part of what makes eating here so varied.
Popular Japanese rice and seafood dishes
Rice is the base of a Japanese meal, and the word for cooked rice, gohan, also means "meal". These dishes show it at its best, alongside the seafood that an island nation does so well.
Sushi (寿司)
Sushi (寿司) is bite-sized vinegared rice topped or rolled with raw or cooked seafood, egg or vegetables, served with soy sauce and wasabi. You find it nationwide, any day of the week, and green tea is the usual drink alongside.
Nigiri, a hand-pressed oval of rice with a slice of fish on top, is what most visitors picture. Maki rolls rice and filling in seaweed; chirashi scatters fish over a bowl of rice. At a conveyor-belt (kaiten) sushi shop you take plates as they pass or order on a touch screen, and the bill is counted by plate colour. At a counter sushi bar the chef serves piece by piece, often as an omakase (chef's choice) course.
Eat nigiri in one bite, and dip only the fish side into soy sauce so it does not fall apart. Pickled ginger cleans the palate between pieces. Tuna in its fatty cuts (chutoro and otoro), salmon roe, sea urchin and seasonal white fish are the pieces regulars order to judge a shop.
Fish markets in every big city are the obvious places to start, such as Tsukiji Outer Market in Tokyo, Omicho Market in Kanazawa and Kuromon Market in Osaka, and conveyor-belt chains sit in any station area.
Sashimi (刺身)
Served without rice, sashimi (刺身) is thin slices of very fresh raw fish or seafood with soy sauce, wasabi and shredded daikon radish. It is a dinner and izakaya dish, strongest in coastal towns, and sake suits it well.
Sashimi lets the fish speak for itself. A mixed platter (moriawase) in an izakaya usually includes tuna, salmon, yellowtail, squid and a seasonal white fish. Horse meat sashimi (basashi) is a speciality of Kumamoto in Kyushu, and you will see it on menus there.
Quality depends on freshness, so coastal towns and market districts give you the most for your money. The shredded radish and shiso leaf on the plate are meant to be eaten as palate cleansers.
Donburi (丼)
A donburi (丼) is a bowl of rice with a topping, from simmered beef (gyudon) to chicken and egg (oyakodon), pork cutlet (katsudon) or raw seafood (kaisendon). It is eaten nationwide as a quick lunch, usually with a cup of miso soup.
Think of it as Japan's everyday fast meal. Gyudon chains serve a bowl in a minute or two, around the clock in many cities, and you order by ticket machine or tablet. Oyakodon, whose name means "parent and child" because it combines chicken and egg, is a gentle first dish for children. Kaisendon, a bowl of mixed raw seafood, is the breakfast of choice in market towns such as Hakodate and Otaru in Hokkaido.
Toppings change with the region and season: salmon roe in Hokkaido, sea urchin on the Sea of Japan coast, and grilled eel in summer. Gyudon chains stand near every major station, and market stalls in Hakodate, Sapporo and Kanazawa do the best kaisendon.
Unagi (grilled eel) (鰻)
Locals eat unagi (鰻) for stamina in the hottest weeks of midsummer. The freshwater eel is split, grilled over charcoal and glazed with a sweet soy-based sauce, then usually served on rice. Nagoya, Shizuoka and Tokyo are the places known for it.
Served on rice in a lacquered box it is unaju; on a bowl it is unadon. In Nagoya it becomes hitsumabushi: chopped eel on rice, which you eat first plain, then with condiments, and finally with dashi broth poured over.
Kanto (Tokyo) cooks steam the eel before grilling, which makes it soft. Kansai (Osaka) cooks grill it straight, which gives a crisper skin. Good unagi shops cook to order, so expect a wait.
Japanese noodle dishes travellers love
Noodles are Japan's great democratic food, eaten standing at station counters and in queues that run around the block. Slurping is normal and helps cool the noodles.
Ramen (ラーメン)
Ramen (ラーメン) means wheat noodles in a rich broth flavoured with soy sauce (shoyu), salt (shio), miso or pork bone (tonkotsu), topped with sliced pork, egg, greens and nori. Every city has its own style, it is a classic late-night meal, and gyoza is the side order.
The dish arrived from China and became a national obsession. Sapporo is known for miso ramen, which local accounts credit to the shop Aji no Sanpei in the 1950s, with thick curly noodles and stir-fried vegetables. Tokyo's classic is a clear soy sauce broth. Fukuoka's Hakata ramen uses a milky white pork bone broth with very thin, straight noodles.
Many shops use a ticket machine at the door: pay, take the ticket and hand it to the cook. Hakata shops let you choose how firm the noodles should be and order a refill of noodles (kaedama) for the leftover soup.
Good places to start are Ramen Street inside Tokyo Station, the yatai food stalls along the river in Fukuoka's Nakasu, and the Ramen Yokocho alley in Sapporo's Susukino.
Udon (うどん)
Thick and chewy, udon (うどん) is a wheat noodle served hot in dashi broth or cold with a dipping sauce, topped with tempura, fried tofu or egg. Kagawa (Sanuki) and Osaka are its strongholds, tempura is the natural partner, and it is one of the cheapest meals in the country.
Udon is the soft, filling cousin of ramen, lighter in flavour and often cheaper. Kagawa Prefecture on Shikoku is so tied to its firm Sanuki udon that it markets itself as the "udon prefecture", and self-service shops there let you pick your noodles, add toppings from a counter and pay at the end. Kitsune udon, topped with sweet fried tofu, is an Osaka favourite. Curry udon is a hearty winter choice.
Cold udon with a dipping sauce (zaru udon) is a refreshing summer meal; hot udon in clear broth is the classic in colder months.
Soba (蕎麦)
Families across Japan eat toshikoshi soba (蕎麦) on New Year's Eve for long life. These thin buckwheat noodles come cold on a bamboo tray with dipping sauce or hot in broth, and Nagano, Tokyo and Izumo are the regions best known for them. A cup of sake goes well alongside.
Soba has a nutty, earthy flavour and a firmer bite than udon. Mori or zaru soba, served cold with a small cup of dipping sauce, spring onion and wasabi, is the purist's order. At the end of the meal many shops bring a pot of sobayu, the cooking water, to pour into the leftover sauce and drink.
Nagano, in the mountains, is famous for its buckwheat. Travellers with a buckwheat allergy should avoid soba shops entirely, as noodles share water and equipment.
Grilled and fried Japanese food to order
Expect these dishes behind the long counters and smoky grills of an evening out, and they go well with a cold beer.
Tempura (天ぷら)
Tempura (天ぷら) is seafood and vegetables dipped in a very light batter and deep-fried, served with a dipping sauce of dashi, soy and grated radish, or with salt. Tokyo is its home, and it makes a good special lunch, either with rice or as tendon.
Good tempura is crisp and pale, never greasy. Prawn, squid, white fish, sweet potato, aubergine, pumpkin and shiso leaf are standard. At a tempura counter, pieces come straight from the oil one at a time; at cheaper shops you order a set or a tendon, tempura on rice with a sweet sauce.
Tempura also sits on top of soba and udon, so it is easy to try without booking a special restaurant.
Yakitori (焼き鳥)
After work, office workers fill the yakitori (焼き鳥) shops. The dish is bite-sized chicken threaded on bamboo skewers and grilled over charcoal, seasoned with salt (shio) or a sweet soy glaze (tare), and it is sold nationwide with beer.
Almost every part of the chicken gets used: thigh with spring onion (negima), minced chicken meatballs (tsukune), skin, wings and hearts. Little shops under the railway tracks in Tokyo, such as around Yurakucho, are packed in the evening.
Ordering a mix of salt and sauce skewers shows the cook's skill. Vegetables such as shiitake, green peppers and ginkgo nuts are grilled the same way for non-meat eaters. Yurakucho and Shinjuku's Omoide Yokocho in Tokyo are the classic spots, and izakaya in every city serve it too.
Tonkatsu (豚カツ)
Few meals give better value than a tonkatsu (豚カツ) set. A thick pork loin or fillet cutlet is coated in panko breadcrumbs and deep-fried, then sliced and served with shredded cabbage, rice, miso soup and a thick, fruity sauce. Tokyo and Nagoya are known for it.
Shops serve it as a set meal (teishoku) with pickles, and many refill the cabbage and rice free. Choose rosu (loin, juicier, with fat) or hire (fillet, leaner). In Nagoya it comes as miso katsu, smothered in a sweet red miso sauce.
Katsu sando, the cutlet in soft white bread, is a favourite train snack sold at department store food halls.
Wagyu and Kobe beef (和牛)
Wagyu (和牛) simply means Japanese cattle, beef prized for fine marbling and a splurge on most budgets. Hyogo, Gifu, Shiga and Miyazaki are the big names, and teppanyaki or yakiniku are the best ways to eat it.
Kobe beef is one strict brand of it: the animals must be Tajima cattle born and raised in Hyogo Prefecture and pass grading rules set by the Kobe Beef Marketing and Distribution Promotion Association. Certified meat carries a chrysanthemum mark and an identification number you can ask to see. Matsusaka, Omi and Hida beef are other famous brands.
Teppanyaki (cooked on a hot plate in front of you) is the classic way to try Kobe beef. Yakiniku, where you grill thin slices yourself, is a cheaper way to taste good wagyu.
In Kobe itself, head for the streets around Sannomiya Station; for more affordable wagyu, yakiniku restaurants in every city will do.
Sukiyaki and shabu-shabu (すき焼き・しゃぶしゃぶ)
Two hot pots cooked at the table, sukiyaki and shabu-shabu (すき焼き・しゃぶしゃぶ) are winter meals for groups, served nationwide. Sukiyaki simmers beef and vegetables in a sweet soy broth; shabu-shabu swishes thin slices through light stock.
In sukiyaki, thin beef, tofu, leeks, mushrooms and noodles cook in a shallow iron pan with a sweet sauce, and each bite is dipped in beaten raw egg. Shabu-shabu is lighter: you swish the meat through simmering stock until it just changes colour, then dip it in sesame or citrus ponzu sauce.
Both are social meals, usually ordered for at least two people. Many restaurants offer all-you-can-eat courses with a time limit.
Japanese street food and snacks
Festival stalls, market lanes and covered shopping streets are the best places to snack your way through a day. Eating while walking is frowned on in some areas, so stand near the stall to finish.
Takoyaki (たこ焼き)
Osaka's signature snack, takoyaki (たこ焼き), is round dumplings of wheat batter filled with diced octopus, cooked in a moulded griddle and topped with sauce, mayonnaise, seaweed and bonito flakes. It is festival food, washed down with beer or soda.
It is generally credited to street vendor Tomekichi Endo, whose shop Aizuya began selling it in 1935, and the shop still serves a plain, sauceless version. Today stalls flip the balls with picks in heavy cast-iron pans, and you can watch them form.
The insides stay molten long after the outside cools, so bite carefully. Osaka's Dotonbori and Shinsekai are packed with stands, and any summer festival across Japan will have a stall.
Okonomiyaki (お好み焼き)
The name okonomiyaki (お好み焼き) roughly means "cooked as you like". It is a savoury pancake of batter and shredded cabbage cooked on a hot plate with meat or seafood, then topped with sauce, mayonnaise, seaweed and bonito. Osaka and Hiroshima both claim it, and it makes a casual dinner with beer.
In Osaka the ingredients are mixed into the batter and cooked as one thick pancake, often by you at a table grill. In Hiroshima it is layered: a thin crepe, a heap of cabbage, pork, a layer of yakisoba or udon noodles and a fried egg, built by the cook on a big hot plate. The Hiroshima style grew up in the years after the war, when flour and cabbage were cheap.
Tokyo's cousin is monjayaki, a runnier mix eaten straight off the griddle with a small spatula; the Tsukishima district has a whole street of monja shops. In Hiroshima, go to Okonomimura in the Shintenchi district, a building with more than 20 okonomiyaki counters over several floors; in Osaka, Dotonbori.
Gyoza (餃子)
Gyoza (餃子) came from Chinese jiaozi, and Japan made the pan-fried version its own. Thin wrappers are filled with minced pork, cabbage, garlic chives and ginger, then pan-fried until crisp on the bottom and steamed on top. They are cheap, sold nationwide, and go with beer or ramen.
The ideal has a crisp golden base and a juicy filling. Dip in a mix of soy sauce, rice vinegar and chilli oil, mixed to taste at your table.
Gyoza is the standard side order in ramen shops, and dedicated gyoza bars serve plates with nothing but dumplings, rice and beer. Many also offer boiled (sui-gyoza) and deep-fried versions if you want to compare textures.
Onigiri (おにぎり)
On train journeys, onigiri (おにぎり) is the snack every traveller lives on. It is a hand-shaped ball or triangle of rice with a filling such as salted salmon, pickled plum or tuna mayonnaise, usually wrapped in nori seaweed, sold nationwide and best with green tea.
Convenience stores sell dozens of kinds, with a clever wrapper that keeps the seaweed crisp: pull tab 1, then the two sides. Speciality onigiri shops in Tokyo now make them to order with fillings piled on top.
Classic fillings are umeboshi (sour pickled plum), salted salmon (shake), kelp (kombu) and cod roe (mentaiko). For a train ride, pair them with an ekiben lunch box from the station.
Japanese comfort food eaten at home
Japanese families cook these on weeknights, and they are often the most welcome meals after a long day of sightseeing.
Japanese curry rice (カレーライス)
Curry rice (カレーライス) is a family dinner across the whole country: a thick, mild, slightly sweet sauce with meat, potato, carrot and onion, served over rice with red fukujinzuke pickles on the side.
Curry reached Japan through British influence and became a national comfort food. It is thicker and sweeter than South Asian curries and usually mild. Katsu curry adds a pork cutlet on top, and curry bread (kare pan), deep-fried dough filled with curry, is a bakery favourite.
Curry chains let you pick the spice level, rice amount and toppings, and are a reliable choice for picky eaters and children.
Miso soup (味噌汁)
Breakfast in Japan nearly always includes miso soup (味噌汁), dashi stock with miso paste dissolved in it, usually with tofu, wakame seaweed and spring onion. It comes with rice and almost every set meal nationwide.
Its taste changes across the country. Nagoya favours dark red miso, Kyoto a pale, sweet white miso. Clam miso soup and pork miso soup (tonjiru) are heartier versions.
Drink it straight from the bowl, using chopsticks to eat the tofu and seaweed. Standard dashi is made with bonito fish flakes, so vegetarians should ask.
Japanese sweets and desserts worth trying
Japanese sweets often lean on red bean, rice flour and green tea, with little heavy cream, and they are designed to be eaten with tea.
Mochi and wagashi (餅・和菓子)
Kyoto leads the country in mochi and wagashi (餅・和菓子), though you find them nationwide. These traditional confections are made from rice flour, sweet red bean paste and seasonal ingredients, shaped to reflect the time of year and served with matcha.
Wagashi are small, often beautiful sweets. Daifuku is soft mochi wrapped around red bean paste, sometimes with a whole strawberry inside. Dango are rice dumplings on a skewer, grilled with a sweet soy glaze. Kyoto's confectioners shape sweets as cherry blossoms in spring and maple leaves in autumn.
Mochi is very chewy. Older people and small children should eat it in small bites. Old confectioners in Kyoto's Gion and Nishiki Market sell the best, and department store basement food halls (depachika) carry them in any city.
Matcha sweets and kakigori (抹茶・かき氷)
Uji, just south of Kyoto, is the best-known tea region and the place for matcha sweets and kakigori (抹茶・かき氷). Powdered green tea goes into drinks, ice cream and cakes, soft-serve above all, while kakigori is shaved ice topped with syrups, fruit or condensed milk, eaten in summer.
Matcha has a bitter, grassy taste that balances sweet desserts, and Uji's shops sell matcha soft-serve, parfaits and noodles. Kakigori is ice shaved so fine it feels like snow, covered in strawberry, matcha or fruit syrups.
For a traditional bowl of matcha, many temples and tea houses in Kyoto serve it with a small sweet.
Taiyaki (たい焼き)
A winter street snack sold nationwide, taiyaki (たい焼き) is a fish-shaped cake of pancake or waffle batter filled with red bean paste, custard or chocolate and cooked in a moulded iron. Hot tea is the right drink with it.
The shape is a sea bream (tai), a fish linked with good luck. It is best eaten hot from the mould, when the outside is crisp. Red bean paste is the traditional filling; custard is the most popular modern one.
Look for small stands in shopping streets; a fresh one is far better than the boxed versions. Naniwaya Sohonten in Tokyo's Azabu-Juban is widely credited with selling the first taiyaki in 1909, though a rival theory places the origin in Mie Prefecture.
How to choose where to eat in Japan
Choose the restaurant by the dish, because most Japanese restaurants specialise. A ramen shop serves ramen, a tonkatsu shop serves tonkatsu, and the best way to try many dishes in one evening is an izakaya, a pub with a long menu of small plates. Department store basement food halls (depachika) are the easiest place to sample sweets, pickles and bento without any language barrier.
Budget travellers can eat very well on donburi, udon, curry, onigiri and conveyor-belt sushi. Save your splurge for a sushi counter, a tempura course or a Kobe beef teppanyaki dinner, and book those ahead, since many top counters seat fewer than a dozen guests. Many restaurants now list English menus or picture menus, and ticket machines at the door often have photos.
For eating with dietary limits, know that dashi made from bonito fish flakes flavours most soups and sauces, so true vegetarian or vegan food takes planning. Shojin ryori, the Buddhist vegetarian cuisine served at temples such as those in Kyoto and on Mount Koya, is the safest choice. Muslim travellers will find halal-certified restaurants in Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto, and many ramen shops now offer chicken or vegetable broth. Carry an allergy card in Japanese for soy, wheat, buckwheat, shellfish or egg allergies.
Tips for eating out in Japan as a visitor
- Use ticket machines. Many noodle and rice-bowl shops have a ticket machine by the door. Pay, take the ticket and hand it to staff; photos and numbers help if the buttons are only in Japanese.
- Say itadakimasu. Locals say "itadakimasu" before eating and "gochisousama deshita" after. Staff appreciate visitors who try.
- No tipping. Tipping is not part of dining in Japan. Pay at the register on the way out.
- Chopstick manners. Never stand chopsticks upright in rice or pass food from chopstick to chopstick; both are linked to funeral rites.
- Eat at off-peak times. Popular shops queue from noon to 1 pm. Lunch at 11 am or after 2 pm cuts the wait sharply.
- Try depachika at closing. Department store food halls discount bento and sushi in the last hour before closing.
Planning the route between food cities? Osaka, Hiroshima and Fukuoka sit on one bullet train line, so a food-focused trip can follow it from east to west. Browse Osaka and Tokyo for places to stay, or start with flights to Japan.
Planning a trip to Japan? Read our Japan travel guide, compare hotels in Japan or search flights.
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