4 Best Restaurants in Shikoku, Japan

Connected to a small gallery a few doors down from the I ♥ Yu baths in Miyanoura, this rickety looking restaurant serves up traditional, simple teishoku set meals for lunch and dinner. With the classic combo of rice, miso soup, and pickles, expect super-fresh sashimi and other seafood options. When the weather is nice, enjoy your meal on the restaurant's wooden terrace. 

Specializing in fish from the Seto Inland Sea, this intimate sushi restaurant is the place to mingle with food-loving locals or enjoy an intimate dinner for two. The ingredients are top-quality, and everyone here wants to make sure you enjoy your experience. Sit at the long counter and order à la carte, or dine upstairs on a prix-fixe meal in a quiet booth. There's no English menu, but some people on staff speak English. Sushi Kappo Komatsu can be hard to spot, but look for the bamboo screens and miniature rock garden out front. Reservations are recommended for the prix-fixe dinners.

Find your favorite fish in the pool at Tenkatsu, and it will be on your plate a few minutes later. You can sit close to the action at the big black countertop, or dine on tatami with sunken horigotatsu tables. The interior design here hardly overwhelms, but the food more than makes up for it. Plastic displays and picture menus help you choose your non-fish dishes, or you could opt for a plush course (but going a la carte is much cheaper if you aren't ready for a big meal). Nabe hot pots in autumn and winter are house favorites, but they also serve local specialties like honetsukidori grilled chicken thigh.

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.