Japan Food Tours

How to plan food experiences in Japan

Japan has some of the best eating in the world, and some of the hardest to get into on your own. The best places are often tiny: eight seats at a counter, a menu only in Japanese, no website and a regular crowd. That is why food tours sell so well here. A guide books the seats, orders for you and explains what you are eating, so you get into the yakitori alleys and standing bars that most visitors walk past.

Tokyo: start with a night food tour

Book a Tokyo food tour for your first or second evening. It is the easiest way to learn how izakaya, ramen counters and ticket machines work, and you can use that for the rest of the trip. Shinjuku is the classic choice for the smoky lanes of Omoide Yokocho and the bars of Golden Gai. Asakusa is better for old Tokyo snacks around Senso-ji. If you prefer to make something yourself, a sushi making class is the most booked hands on experience in the city and works well with children.

Kyoto: tradition, tofu and tea

Kyoto eats more quietly. The food is seasonal and refined: yuba and tofu dishes, pickles, obanzai home cooking, wagashi sweets and matcha. A Kyoto food tour usually walks Nishiki Market by day or Gion and Pontocho at night. A Kyoto cooking class lets you make ramen, gyoza, onigiri or a home style meal, sometimes in a local home.

Osaka: eat until you drop

Osaka calls itself the nation’s kitchen, and its motto is kuidaore, eating until you drop. Food here is loud, cheap and fried: takoyaki, okonomiyaki, kushikatsu skewers and crab under the neon of Dotonbori. An Osaka food tour is the most fun food night of many Japan trips. Osaka is only about 15 minutes from Kyoto by bullet train, so it also works as an evening trip from Kyoto.

When to book

Cherry blossom season (late March to early April) and autumn leaves (November, into early December in Kyoto) are the busiest times of the year. Popular evening tours and classes fill up weeks ahead then, so book as soon as your dates are fixed. In other months a few days ahead is usually enough. Most tours run in the rain, and June to mid July is the rainy season.

Good to know before you go

• Allergies and diets: Japanese food uses dashi (fish stock) in almost everything, so vegetarian and pescatarian travellers should tell the tour when booking. Many tours can adapt; some cannot.
• Cash: cards are now widely accepted, but small bars and market stalls are often cash only. Carry yen.
• Tipping: not expected in Japan, including on tours.
• Cover charge: many izakaya add a small cover charge and serve a starter called otoshi. It is normal, and included when you eat on a tour.
• Eating while walking: frowned upon in some places, including parts of Asakusa and Nishiki Market. Eat at the stall, then move on.

More Japan: Tokyo food tours, Tokyo sushi making classes, Osaka food tours, Kyoto food tours and Kyoto cooking classes.