3 Best Restaurants in Kochi, Shikoku

This delightful café-restaurant sits just south of the main drag between Harimaya-bashi and the castle. Choose a table by the window and people-watch on the cobbled lane, or head indoors to the quirky third-floor dining area. The cake, incidentally, is excellent.

This ever-popular place in Hirome Market has perfected katsuo tataki, the regional fish specialty and the only item on the menu other than beer and rice. Fresh cuts of skipjack tuna are seared to perfection by a cook perilously close to being engulfed by the flames that he's feeding with big handfuls of straw. So look for the orange flames erupting from this stall's window. You can have the fish served on a bed of rice, sprinkled with salt, or drizzled with a citrusy soy sauce, and you'll never get enough of it. Myojin-Maru belongs to the captain of the largest fishing vessel in the port town Kure, where most of the restaurant's fish comes from. Locals love this place. To avoid lines, arrive early for lunch or dinner.

Meals here range from simple lunchtime bento boxes to the lavish fish platters that are a Kochi specialty. The staff will recommend the local favorite katsuo (skipjack tuna)—in Japanese it's sasuga Kochi, "just as you'd expect in Kochi"—but consider the shabu-shabu meat and vegetable combinations, which your servers will teach you to cook on a special table in your private tatami room. Be careful with seating; the first floor is a bland cafeteria, so indicate that you want an upstairs room instead.