We all have heard about Sushi, Ramen, and Tempura, but have you ever heard of Hitsumabushi, Miso Nikomi Udon, or Tebasaki? Chances are you haven’t. And that’s okay. These and more are the local dishes you will get to try on a ‘Specialties of Nagoya Food Tour’. This tour will let you deep-dive into the Nagoyan cuisine and by extension the culture and even history of the city.
2-6 people (16,000 yen/person)
0 ~ 3 years old: free
4 ~ 12 years old: 8,000 yen/person
Private Experience
Oasis 21 Sakae Station (Google Maps)
Sakae Station (Google Maps)
Start flexible between 11:00 and 18:00 (3-3.5 hours)
English, German, Japanese
English: Fluent ★★★★☆
German: Native ★★★★★
Japanese: Business ★★★☆☆
This food tour of Nagoya will provide you with the unique opportunity to learn about the local food culture.
Meet your knowledgeable guide in the heart of the city from where you will start exploring the food scene on foot. There will be quite a bit of walking involved, but don’t worry lots of breaks at restaurants are provided throughout the tour where you can rest and recharge your energy.
You will try Miso Nikomi Udon, a variety of Udon noodles served in a steaming hot soup of red Miso paste, try pickles from the world’s longest radish, hear the story behind the local rice balls stuffed with shrimp Tempura, and explore the underground level of Japan’s oldest department store.
Your tour guide will talk about Japanese demons and famine and what they have to do with a local sweet potato treat. Learn how to eat Hitsumabushi, the local dish made from freshwater eel. Because in Japan it’s always more complicated than you think.
And finally learn about the drinking culture of Japan in a popular Nagoya Izakaya, and wash down your peppery chicken wings with a cold Japanese beer or other beverage.
All of this and more is included in the ‘Specialties of Nagoya Food Tour’!
*Content is subject to change depending on availability
Meet your guide at Oasis 21 Bus Terminal in Sakae. You will learn about the brief history of Nagoya from its founding all the way to today. The views on top of Oasis 21 will help you orient yourself in the city and the guide will point out the places of interest.
We hope you are hungry by that point, because your first stop of the tour is waiting. It is a restaurant known for popularizing Miso Nikomi Udon. A local specialty made of Udon noodles in a flavorful and dark Miso-based soup.
The second shop you visit has only 8 seats and sells only a single item: Ebi Tenmusu, mini-sized rice balls stuffed with a single shrimp Tempura and wrapped in seaweed. Hot and salty, this dish is simple and delicious.
It is time to explore the underground levels of Matsuzakaya, arguably the oldest Department Store in Japan. Here you will find a wide variety of foods, confectionaries, sweets, and more. You will get to try Ebi Senbei, shrimp rice crackers as well as Oni Manju, sweet potato rice cakes.
The highlight of this tour is no doubt the Hitsumabushi, grilled freshwater eel on rice. A real local specialty that doesn’t come cheap. And its consumption has to follow some important rules.
By this point you will surely feel full to the bursting, but even now it is hard to say no to an ice cold beer or cocktail served with peppery deep-fried chicken wings called Tebasaki.
From here your guide will walk you back to Sakae Station or give you directions to your hotel or any other place you want to visit next.
I offer unique and authentic food tours in Nagoya. I have been living in Japan for more than 5 years and I have always loved trying and learning about the different kinds of Japanese food. Starting my food tour business in Nagoya gave me the chance to really dive deep into the local cuisine which is very different from other parts of Japan.
After living in Nagoya for one year and devoting my time to the local food, I now have knowledge about the Nagoyan food not even many locals have. I love sharing my knowledge with foreign visitors to Japan and I want people to fall in love with the local Nagoya cuisine as I have.
We had a wonderful tour of Nagoya food specialties, hosted by Lena and Riko. Having lived in Nagoya for a few months, I was familiar with a couple of items, but for each one I learned so much more, and there were many items new to me as well. My son and his fiancé were visiting me in Japan, so the tour was a truly excellent way to introduce them to Japanese food, and the culture around it, with the focus on Nagoya. Lena and Riko taught us about things like where the food comes from, why it’s special in Nagoya, where to buy it, and importantly how to eat it. It opened all our eyes to the richness of local food traditions. Thank you so much for the fabulous experience!
We very much enjoyed our food tour of Nagoya with Lena as our knowledgeable guide. We enjoyed trying all the different foods and exploring Nagoya’s food scene, plus the quirky vending machines were a bonus! The highlight was definitely the unagi and learning how to eat it Nagoya style which was a unique experience and not to be missed. We also enjoyed the sweet rice uiro and even bought some to take back home with us. We left with happy, full bellies and yes, Nagoya is definitely not boring!
Lena went above and beyond to make sure we had the ultimate Nagoya food tour (even taking the time to wait for one of the best restaurants to open in the evening so we could have the quintessential hitsumabushi experience!). The tour is wonderfully curated to give a wide range of flavors with a good balance between sweet and savory to satisfy the whole tour group. She’s very knowledgeable about the local Aichi culture and regional cuisine and kept the tour interesting by sharing relevant historical and cultural info. I hope to visit Nagoya again thanks to her introduction to the cuisine and local culture!
My daughter and I did a food tour of Nagoya, and it was just wonderful. Lena was informative, professional and fun. We had a terrific time tasting the specialities of Nagoya and nothing was too much trouble for Lena in explaining things and helping us to understand the Japanese way of life. I can’t recommend her tours enough…you’ll have a great time!
Great food tour of Nagoya
Lena was a wonderful tour guide. Very knowledgeable about Nagoya in general as well as the food. Happy to answer all questions. Really enjoyed trying the specialities of Nagoya.
