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Traditional Japanese ryotei specialize in seasonal delicacies while casual eateries serve delicious home-style cooking and regional dishes. Western fare is easy to come by, especially in larger cities like Kanazawa, which is famed for the local Kaga cuisine.
This restaurant is famous for its vegetarian shojin ryori (temple food), which it serves up in a 200-year-old building south of the Higashiyama temple area. Set menus change with the seasons and aren't always fully vegetarian; they can include salt-grilled river fish, crispy tempura, handmade soba noodles, or tofu chilled in ice-cold Takayama water. The 12th-generation owner, the English-speaking Sumitake-san, can explain what all the dishes are. You need to book in advance and might want to dress up a bit.
This stately building just outside the gates of Zenko-ji combines a bar, lounge, café, and fantastic Italian restaurant. The rather formal modern dining room offers prix-fixe or à la carte options featuring high-quality local ingredients, while the bar and lounge serve up light meals in stately surroundings and the café is a little more relaxed. There is no formal dress code, but the restaurant is something you'll feel like dressing smartly for.
This shop specializes in fu, or wheat gluten. Its adjacent restaurant offers kaiseki-like lunch sets that change monthly but are centered on the wheat gluten and in-season vegetables like shiitake mushrooms. Lunch is served from 11:30 to 2; after that, coffee, tea and sweets are served until 6.
A terrific brewery and log-cabin-style restaurant is five minutes by taxi from Matsunami Station (on the Noto Line). It's operated by two beer masters from Eastern Europe in conjunction with an association that helps people with disabilities.
Seasonal seafood and regional specialties dominate the menu here, with dishes like wappa-meshi (rice steamed in a wooden box with toppings of salmon, chicken, or crab) making for an inexpensive and excellent lunch and, depending on the season, more elaborate dinner courses including yanagi karei hitohoshi-yaki (grilled flounder), nodo-guro shioyaki (grilled blackthroat seaperch), and buri teriyaki (yellowtail). Inaka-ya, which closes between lunch and dinner from 2:30 to 5, is found in the heart of Furu-machi, the local eating and drinking district.
In business for more than half a century, this small restaurant in Aikawa specializes in seafood, with excellent sashimi and simmered dishes, but also a local favorite called ikagoro; squid (innards and all) mixed with sliced onions, mushrooms, and miso paste, before being sauteed. If you are staying without a meal plan at the Hotel Mancho or Hotel Oosado, both just down the coast from Aikawa, this is a good value option for a local dinner.
The tiled bar and wooden tables are as inviting as the staff of this family-friendly restaurant a few blocks north of Karuizawa Station. The menu is centered on rotisserie chicken, served alongside healthy salads and other dishes using local, seasonal produce. To go with that is a solid selection of wines and local craft beers, as well as soft drinks such as honey and yuzu soda.
As the seasons change, so do the menu options at this kaiseki ryori–focused showplace in the Kanazawa Tokyu Hotel. In spring your meal may include hotaru-ika (firefly squid) and iidako (baby octopus) no larger than your thumbnail, in fall expect matsutake mushrooms to make an appearance. Dinner courses can be very expensive, though the the cheapest menus are much more reasonable. The prices are similar at the far more atmospheric main branch-cum-traditional inn by the Sai-gawa River (the Tokyu surroundings are smart, yet a little sterile), although getting a reservation there is far harder.
You might be surprised to find a funky Balinese eatery alongside the Sai-gawa River, but the nasi goreng, satay and other familiar dishes all taste like the real deal. From Kata-machi Scramble (the area's central intersection), turn right just before Sai-gawa Bridge, and follow the narrow lane along the river.
Here you'll find all kinds of fresh fish, some of which are found only in the Sea of Japan. For easy ordering, opt for a set course and ask for a Niigata sake to go with it; nowhere in Japan does sake better. Marui closes during midafternoon. It's one block off the Furu-machi arcade.
At this place in the renowned Kenroku Garden, excellent fish and vegetable dishes have been carefully prepared for nearly one hundred years. The prices are still reasonable, and the garden views from the tatami are an added bonus.
Slip into this little shop, in business since 1859, for a scoop of delicious sofuto kurimu (soft-serve ice cream) or a cup of tea. You can relax in the small garden in the rear or on benches out front. At the far end of the Tate-machi shopping street, the heavenly scent of roasting green tea leaves wafts out the door. The café is open daily 9:30 to 6:30.
Two blocks before the Chitose-bashi Bridge, this Japanese version of a traditional British pub serves fish-and-chips and pizza along with local Matsumoto beer and rotating craft brews from elsewhere. It's close to Parco department store, between the station and castle.
Seasonal delights like pungent Matsutake mushrooms are packed into the take-out bento (box lunches; from ¥2,000) and more indulgent eat-in courses at this traditional eatery, which has an open-air terrace and a glass-walled interior. A few blocks southwest of Zenko-ji, it's attached to the sake factory and warehouses of the famous distiller Yoshinoya. From 9 to 5 you can tour for free, ending with a sampling of fresh sake.
On the south bank of the Sai-gawa River close to the Sakura-bashi Bridge, this Michelin two-star restaurant serves Kaga specialties. Dinner in a private room overlooking the garden is a splurge but worth it. In traditional Japanese style, the meal finishes with rice, pickles, and soup; in autumn the broth is clear, with herbs and a shrimp dumpling. If you want to experience the food without the high price of dinner, lunch sets start at half the cost of dinner. It's a fancy place, so you'll want to dress up a bit, and you'll need a reservation at least three days ahead.
Various sashimi and sushi combinations are reasonably priced at this small but beautiful sushi bar close to the post office in Wajima. With the post office on your right, walk two blocks down Route 249. It's on your right just after the road takes a slight diagonal turn.
This restaurant's recipes have been passed down over several generations—the house specialty is the superb and inexpensive sansai-ryori, as well as more expensive dishes using highly rated Hida beef. Suzuya is in a traditional Hida-style house, and the wood-beamed dining room has an intimate feel. There's an English menu, and the staff is used to serving foreign guests. From the station turn onto Kokubunji-dori and take a right after five blocks. Lunch is served until 2 pm, and dinner begins at 5.
A short drive from the ferry terminal in Ogi, this three-story building has a fish shop on the ground level and a casual seafood restaurant upstairs serving superfresh seasonal fish. The restaurant owners sometimes take unscheduled days off, so call in advance to make sure they're open.
This bustling izakaya across the street from the annex of Hotel Iidaya on the station's east side serves up izakaya staples plus regional specialties like basashi (raw horse meat), sansoku-yaki (a kind of fried chicken) and rabbit (usagi means “rabbit”). There's no English menu, so keep an eye out for what others are eating and point to whatever looks good. At lunch, it turns into a ramen joint. It's easy to spot because of the rabbit design on the noren curtain over the door.
With a retro vibe, Yume-ya specializes in old-style yakitori (skewered, grilled meat and vegetables). Cozy up to the narrow counter for food and drinks, or sit outside during the warmer months. Little English is spoken by the staff, but the cooks are happy to explain the menu with exaggerated gestures. If it's full, just down the street is a second branch that specializes in a different kind of skewer, kushiage, deep-fried skewers of meat, seafood, vegetables, and even cheese.
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