What to eat in Nagoya: 8 must-try dishes

In recent years, gourmets and gourmands have flocked to Nagoya, hungry to take a deeper dive into its cuisine. Fans of Japanese food might recognise Nagoya’s most well-known dishes of miso pork cutlet, fried chicken wings and eel rice, but there’s a lot more to the city’s dining scene for the discerning traveller to explore. 

Influenced by its geography, climate, and a unique dining culture, Nagoya’s cuisine (or ‘Nagoya meshi’) has been shaped with a distinctly comforting, home-style appeal compared to the cuisines of neighbouring regions. If you’ve already explored the refinery of Kyoto’s fit-for-royalty cuisine, or the punchy flavours of Osaka’s street food, you’ll want to add Nagoya’s hearty eats to your wish list. We’ve compiled a food guide to Nagoya with eight of these best eats, guaranteed to sate any and every appetite.

1. Misokatsu (Fried pork cutlet in miso sauce)

The use of miso has long been baked into Nagoya’s food culture, thanks in no small part to miso katsu. It is a pork cutlet coated with crispy breadcrumbs and then deep-fried, served in a thick miso sauce with rice and shredded cabbage on the side. The soul of the dish rests in the sauce, usually made with mirin (sweet rice wine), sugar, broth and, most importantly, red miso from Aichi, Nagoya’s prefecture.

Yabaton , founded in 1947, is said to be the cradle of miso katsu with a menu full of mouth-watering set meals. Be sure to try the teppan tonkatsu, which is served on a sizzling hot iron plate, and the waraji tonkatsu, featuring a jumbo-sized cutlet reminiscent of the shape of a traditional Japanese straw sandal, or waraji. 

2. Hitsumabushi (Eel rice)

Eel rice is revered as the signature dish of Nagoya for a reason: the eel is grilled over oak charcoal to bring out the fat’s flavour and to give a crisp texture to the skin. This rice bowl dish is traditionally divided into four portions, and each is served in a unique manner. The first portion is eaten as-is; the second has condiments such as shredded seaweed, spring onion and wasabi added to it; the third is eaten ochazuke-style with green tea or dashi broth poured over it; and the fourth and last portion is your call – you can have it in your own style.

The century-old Horaiken uses its own secret recipe for the eel’s sauce, which dates back to 1873, and sources the fattest whole freshwater eels which are grilled over quality oak charcoal for a crispy bite and a smoky aroma.

3. Tebasaki (Fried chicken wings)

In Nagoya, fried chicken wings, or tebasaki, did not come on the radars of gourmands as a popular appetiser until the 1960s. This dish is said to have originated from the 60-year-old restaurant Furaibo . Locally sourced mid-joint wings are fried non-marinated and without batter before being glazed with a homemade sweet and spicy sauce. They are then baked at a high temperature to achieve a final tantalising flavour that goes particularly well with an iced beer, making it one of the best eats in Nagoya.

4. Miso Nikomi Udon (Miso stewed udon)

This nourishing Nagoya dish has been passed down from the Edo period. It is a rich miso soup cooked with fresh udon, chicken, fish cake, leek and a raw egg on top. Served in a clay pot, the piping hot noodles are a hearty treat in the winter. Established in 1925, Yamamotoya Sohonke uses the dense and intensely aromatic hatcho miso from Aichi for the soup base. The udon noodles, cooked al dente, soak up all the flavours in the thick miso soup – this is truly a dish not to be missed in Nagoya.

5. Ogura Toast (Red bean paste and butter toast)

Almost every café in Nagoya serves Ogura toast for breakfast: thickly sliced, toasted bread topped with red bean paste and butter – the savouriness of the butter complements well with the sweet red bean. Wash it down with coffee or tea to complete your morning routine. It’s said that Ogura toast was created in 1921 at the Kissa Matsuba coffee shop, where the owner drew inspiration from the students’ habits of dipping their toasts in red bean soup with mochi. 

6. Tenmusu (Tempura shrimp rice ball)

As the name suggests, this dish combines tempura (deep fried shrimp) and omusubi (rice ball) – it is traditionally a bite-sized delicacy served with Japanese pickles. It originated as a provincial dish invented by the restaurant Tenmusu Senju from neighbouring Mie Prefecture in the 1950s and spread to Nagoya in the ‘80s when the restaurant opened an outpost. Besides the dine-in option, there are also takeaway packs for this popular dish, making for a great souvenir.

7. Ankake Spaghetti

This Japanese ode to spaghetti bolognese is made with thick spaghetti noodles which are boiled, then stir-fried with pork lard to give the dish a flavourful kick. The toppings are generous, the most common among them being sausages, bell peppers, and onion, all under a thick glossy layer of tomato-based gravy that gives the dish a sweet and spicy flavour.

Head to Sole for a taste of this popular Nagoya specialty dish. Established in 1961 and still run by the same family, now in its third generation, the restaurant offers over 20 ankake spaghetti flavours. 

8. Doteni (Offal stew)

Doteni is a mainstay on post-war yatai (traditional Japanese food stall) menus in Nagoya. It’s a beef or pork offal and tripe stew simmered in hatcho miso, mirin and broth, with the likes of beef tendon, konjac, and radish as additional toppings.

For the most authentic taste, make your way to the 50-year-old Doteno Shinagawa . This stand-up izakaya, unpretentiously one of the best restaurants in Nagoya, sources the freshest innards each morning for doteni, to be simmered to perfection in its secret sauce.

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