Nagasaki Restaurants and Dining

(Nagasaki, Kyushu, Japan)

Nagasaki is gaining quite a strong culinary reputation in this part of Japan and restaurants in the city are known for their rather diverse influences and tasty dishes. Many restaurants in Nagasaki offer banquet-style dining for small groups, and this is a particularly pleasant way to spend an evening, being known locally as 'shippoku-ryori' and incorporating Chinese, Japanese and other similar cuisines.

Fine dining in Nagasaki needn't be expensive and many hotels in the city provide tourist friendly restaurants and extensive, English menus. However, for a true taste of the local culture and atmosphere, a visit to several of Nagasaki's most inviting restaurants is really not to be missed and here you will discover many local delicacies, such as 'champon', which is made with port, squid and octopus, amongst other tasty ingredients.

What to Eat

Dining at traditional Japanese restaurants in Nagasaki is simply a must, and the food is often accompanied by copious amounts of sake (rice wine), beer, Japanese green tea and shochu, a strong distilled potato-based spirit. You can expect to see many of the dishes shown below.

• Nagasaki champon - a noodle / soup dish often made with pork, octopus, squid and vegetables
• Gyoza - Chinese-based pork dumplings
• Sara-udon - stir-fried equivalent of champon
• Sushi - small balls of vinegar-flavoured, cold rice with sliced raw fish, vegetables and soy sauce (shoyu)
• Tempura - deep-fried, battered pieces of seafood and vegetables
• Unagi - eel, a true Japanese delicacy, often cooked over red-hot coals

Where to Eat

Restaurants in Nagasaki are easy to locate, with an especially large group of dining options being concentrated along the lively Hamano-machi. The aptly named Shian-bashi Gourmet Street is also a great place to eat out in the city of Nagasaki and resides in the Motoshikui-machi area. Many superb restaurants lie along the Shian-bashi Gourmet Street and often specialise in Chinese cuisine and are decorated accordingly, both inside and out. A number of impressive Chinese-style buildings are also located in this part of Nagasaki and add a true oriental atmosphere, standing alongside bars, snack stalls and small shops.

If Chinese restaurants are your thing, then a trip to the Chinatown area of Nagasaki is in order. Also this buzzing district is fairly compact, consisting mainly of two crossing streets with prominent gates. The restaurants here are plentiful and vary greatly in both size and quality. In fact, many of the best restaurants in Nagasaki's Chinatown are so popular that it is quite likely that you will have to wait for a table to become vacant, unless you have booked ahead.

Further restaurants in Nagasaki are clustered along the Kanko-dori strip, the northern side of the city - particularly around the Nagasaki Seiyoh-kan (Western building), other nearby shopping complexes, and throughout the heart of the city.