Japan travel — off-season, mountain regions, and seasonal picks.
Fourteen thousand years of Japanese eating, told through the dishes a traveller actually meets today. Tempura began as Portuguese fasting food in 1543. Nigiri sushi was Edo street food in the 1820s. Tonkatsu was codified at a Ginza counter in 1899. Instant ramen was invented in a concrete shed in Osaka in 1958. The plate in front of you is dated; here’s how to read it.
A field guide to Japanese yakitori, the full vocabulary of named cuts (over twenty, from momo and negima to chochin and tama-himo), the binchotan charcoal tradition, the named Tokyo counters worth booking from Birdland and Toriki down to the Yurakucho gado-shita stalls, plus how to actually order at a counter and what to skip.
Tokyo has been the most-Michelin-starred city on earth since 2008, and the 2026 Guide lists 160 starred restaurants across the city. This is what I would tell a friend planning their first big-night meal: how the booking actually works in 2026, the lunch trick that buys you a 2-star kitchen for 1-star money, the named restaurants worth the wait, and the famous places that are now mostly photo opportunities. Three nights, one big meal, the rest the city.
The smell of the Omicho fish market at nine in the morning, a bowl of jibuni in a black lacquer dish at a 1580s samurai home, gold-leaf ice cream in the old teahouse district, and the dense, two-hundred-and-eighty-year Maeda-clan food culture that holds it all together. Two days in Kanazawa, eating.
A bowl of ramen in Sapporo looks like a completely different dish from a bowl in Fukuoka, because it is. A regional field guide to fifteen styles across Japan and where to try each at its source.
Kobe, Matsusaka, Omi, Hida, Miyazaki, Yonezawa, Sendai, Saga. A regional map of Japanese wagyu traditions, how they actually differ, and why the BMS grade matters more than the brand name on the menu.
Which of Japan most Japanese-feeling foods were actually invented somewhere else? Fifteen answers, ranging from Portuguese missionaries in 1543 to a naval cook improvising British beef stew for a homesick admiral.
Layered okonomiyaki built cabbage by cabbage on the teppan at Okonomimura, Miyajima oysters grilled on sticks by the ferry pier, and the anago-meshi at a counter that has been slicing grilled sea eel since 1901.
I went to Sapporo for two days and stayed a week, and this guide is what I learned. Miso ramen at a standing counter in Susukino, soup curry that took me ten years to try, jingisukan over a dome plate, and the seafood market that opens at seven. Yen prices, subway lines, queue behaviour, a few ‘skip this’ takes.
Tokyo whisky bars with prices in yen, what to order (highball, mizuwari, neat), the big-name distilleries from Yamazaki to Chichibu, and when it is worth booking a tour. A practical guide for anyone who wants to drink Japanese whisky in Japan without getting ripped off.
