Eating should not be a concern for most visitors to Japan. Japan offers a wide variety of food and restaurants that can be found around train stations, on the top floors of department stores, and in shopping arcades.
Many restaurants in Japan display plastic models of their dishes at the entrance or provide a menu with pictures, which makes ordering fairly easy even if the restaurant does not have English speaking staff.
Restaurants often specialize in a single type of food. For example, a ramen shop offers ramen. You will not find udon, sushi, or tempura at a ramen shop, but they do offer gyoza and rice as side dishes.
15 Types of Restaurants in Japan That Are Great for Tourists
1. Ramen
Ramen is a large bowl of noodles in a meat-based broth. The soup is usually topped with a slice of pork, bean sprouts, seaweed, and bamboo shoots.
Each ramen shop offers a slight variation of the soup, making some restaurants more popular than others. Common types of ramen include soy sauce, salt, or miso.
2. Udon and Soba
Udon and soba are served either hot or cold. When cold, the noodles include a dipping sauce. Hot varieties are good with tempura or kitsune (a sweet tofu) as a topping on your udon or soba.
Udon noodles are made from wheat flour. They are thicker, whiter, and chewier than soba noodles. Soba noodles are made from buckwheat flour, but it is often a mix of buckwheat and wheat flour.
3. Sushi
There are many kinds of sushi restaurants, with kaiten-zushi being the most popular for tourists. At kaiten-zushi restaurants, the sushi travels on a conveyor belt and you can take anything that looks good. However, you pay for the number of plates on your table at the end, so be sure to only take what you are going to eat.
4. Yakitori
Yakitori means grilled chicken. The chef grills skewers of meat and vegetables over a charcoal fire. There are many types of chicken skewers (i.e, teriyaki, salt, with onion), but also pork, bell peppers, mushrooms, asparagus, and garlic.
5. Yakiniku
Yakiniku means grilled meat. It is a Korean style barbecue with a grill in the middle of the table. The server brings raw meat and vegetables and you cook the food to your liking. On the table are a variety of dipping sauces.
6. Tonkatsu
Tonkatsu restaurants serve deep fried breaded pork cutlets with unlimited rice, miso soup, and cabbage. Popular cuts of pork are called hire (a leaner tenderloin) and rosu (a fattier pork loin).
7. Okonomiyaki
Okonomiyaki is described as a Japanese pancake or pizza, but it is nothing like any pancake or pizza you have ever had. Ingredients of your choice (i.e., cheese, kimchi, pork, octopus, shrimp) are mixed into a batter (made of flour, egg, and water) with cabbage and poured onto a hot griddle. It is topped with parsley, soy sauce, mayonnaise, and bonito flakes.
8. Tempura
Tempura is deep fried seafood and vegetables in a light, fluffy batter made of flour, egg, and water. Common types of tempura include shrimp, squid, fish, eggplant, mushrooms, pumpkin, and sweet potato.
9. Izakaya
An Izakaya is a type of Japanese bar and grill. They serve a wide variety of foods in a loud, exciting atmosphere. You can order edamame, pickled vegetables, sashimi (raw fish), yakitori, salads, fried chicken, french fries and pizza. Dishes are ordered for the whole table to share.
10. Curry
Curry in Japan is equivalent to macaroni and cheese in America. It’s an easy, delicious food that even children crave. Japanese curry is thicker, sweeter, and not as spicy as Indian or Thai curry. The base is made from pork or beef and includes carrots, potatoes, and onions.
11. Unagi
Unagi restaurants specialize in fresh water eel. The eel is grilled over charcoal, topped with a thick soy sauce, and served over rice.
12. Sukiyaki and Shabu Shabu
Sukiyaki and shabu shabu restaurants are popular in the winter. Both involve cooking food in a large pot at your table. Ingredients include thinly sliced meat, leafy vegetables, shiitake mushrooms, and tofu. Sukiyaki has a sweet soy sauce broth and shabu shabu has a clear, kelp-based broth.
13. Yatai
Yatai are food stalls on the sides of the streets. They often have stools and tables, and sometimes even tents. The food stalls specialize in various dishes, such as okonomiyaki, ramen, takoyaki, yakisoba, and yakitori.
Photo by Sekkun / CC BY-NC-ND
14. Shokudo
Shokudo are small, often family run restaurants or cafeterias near train stations and tourist attractions. They serve a variety of inexpensive Japanese dishes, such as curry, ramen, soba, udon, and tempura. They usually have a daily special that includes rice and miso soup.
15. Fast Food
There are many fast food restaurants all over Japan. You can find American chains, such as McDonald’s, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Subway, but there are also Japanese fast food chains. Mos Burger is one of the most popular hamburger restaurants in Japan offering beef burgers, rice burgers, soy burgers, lettuce wraps, hot dogs, french fries, and onion rings.
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Becki and Shawn
Japan Travel Specialists
Hi, we’re Becki and Shawn! We love Japan and are truly passionate about Japan and Japan travel.
We’ve lived, worked, and traveled in Japan for 20+ years, so we know where to go, what to see, and how to get there. Join us in Japan for an adventure of a lifetime!
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