10 Best Local Restaurants in Nara

Maguro Goya (the name literally means “Tuna Hut”) is a restaurant specializing in tuna dishes located in the Higashimuki-Kita shopping arcade on the north side of Kintetsu Nara Station. This is a great place to enjoy all kinds of tuna, even though Nara is a completely landlocked city.

Besides standard dishes such as sashimi and donburi (rice lawn bowling), you’ll also find dishes such as tataki (seared tuna), kara-age (deep-fried tuna), miso-yaki (broiled tuna with miso paste), and kabuto-yaki (broiled head of tuna) on the menu. The set menu at lunchtime is also popular. The owner speaks English and there’s even an English menu, so in recent years the restaurant has also become a hit with international customers.

Even though Nara is in the Kansai region, the Edogawa Naramachiten restaurant offers strictly Tokyo-style eel cuisine.

This means eel that is steamed and drained of its fat before being broiled, resulting in a soft and fluffy texture. The restaurant’s secret sauce, which has been preserved for over 60 years, really enhances the flavor of the eel. Here you can enjoy local Japanese sake and eel dishes in a chic restaurant with jazz playing in a 140-year-old renovated machiya (traditional townhouse).

GANKO Tonkatsu, Nara Branch is a specialty tonkatsu (pork cutlet) restaurant located just a few minutes away from Kintetsu Nara Station. The chain has branches in Osaka, Hyogo, and Nara prefectures, but this is the only one in Nara.

Not only is the delicious pork from its own contracted farm, but the sauce is also a GANKO original that brings out the best of a variety of ingredients. The shredded cabbage, a standard accompaniment, is also prepared using a sweet variety of cabbage grown on a contract farm. The breadcrumbs are blended so that they can be fried up nice and crispy. Refills of rice, cabbage, and miso soup for the set menus are free of charge, so you can eat until you’re full.

Udon noodle restaurant Kamaiki is located near Kintetsu Nara Station and features the famous Sanuki udon. Nara is the place to be if you want to enjoy the taste of udon made in Sanuki, the home of udon.

Freshly cut noodles are made with Hokkaido wheat every morning. Boiled just in time for customers' arrival, the noodles stay firm and almost crispy. Tempura dishes are also served hot and deep-fried to order. Even the udon soup stock is made from iriko (dried sardines) and kombu (kelp) that have been drained the day before and are used only for that day's dish. Be careful when visiting late, as the restaurant closes as soon as the noodles prepared for that day are sold out!

Yoshino Honkudzu Tengyokudo Nara Main Store is a direct retailer of Inoue Tengyokudo, a producer of Yoshino honkudzu (kudzu is an edible vine native to Japan) in Gose City, Nara Prefecture. It’s located at the site of Todaiji Temple's Saidaimon Gate.

Here, visitors can enjoy a variety of kudzu cuisine and kudzu candies. Kudzu, or kudzu flour, is a premium starch extracted from the thick roots of the kudzu vine plant. Since ancient times, it has been used to enrich the thickness of food and as an ingredient in Japanese confectionery, and Nara is well-known as a center for production of this starch. At the main store in Nara, guests can savor the "Kudzu Zukushi Course" (reservation required), a creative menu serving a variety of kudzu dishes, and freshly made kudzukiri (kudzu noodles) while admiring the scenery of each of the four seasons.

KURA features creative Japanese cuisine using Nara’s local ingredients as well as locally brewed sake. The proprietress is a certified sake connoisseur.

A careful selection of 15 kinds of local Nara sake brands are kept in stock, and there are a wide variety of sake sets that allow you to taste small amounts of different sakes. One of the standout dishes here is the Special Wagyu Beef Motsunabe (beef intestine hot pot). You can choose between miso and soy sauce flavors. All of the restaurant’s 50 seats are private rooms with sunken kotatsu-style arrangements for a cozy and relaxing atmosphere. The restaurant's unique feature is a private room equipped with a footbath (reservation required). The footbath costs 300 yen per person, but the fee is reduced to 200 yen if you bring your own towel.

Harishin is a Japanese restaurant located in Naramachi, Nara City’s old downtown area. Its signature dish is a shokado bento (traditional boxed lunch)

named after the old Kamitsumichi road that has existed since the Nara period (710—794). A variety of seasonal ingredients are colorfully arranged, including sesame tofu made with Yoshino Kudzu starch, a delicacy of Nara Prefecture, and so, an ancient Japanese cheese. The restaurant is housed in a 250-year-old former bureau de change, providing a nostalgic setting for your dining experience.

AIDA Sanjodori-Ten is a stylish set meal restaurant. Located in the middle of Nara City, this new café-restaurant is part of the AIDA chain that had become a hit in the Narayama suburbs.

Sanjo Kaikan, the building that houses the restaurant, was built in the mid-1920s. Offering a choice of main dish, the menu features a daily set meal with a fancy twist on typical items such as Hamburg steaks, fries, and tempura. With salad, side dishes, and miso soup included, the portions are very generous. Why not take a pleasant stroll down Sanjo Street after your lunch?

Surugamachi-no-Okonomiyakiya is an okonomiyaki (Japanese savory pancake) restaurant located near JR Nara Station. The owner, who is from Tokushima, serves Tokushima-style okonomiyaki right here in Nara.

The Tokushima-style Surugumachiyaki features a thin dough topped with crispy tempura made by Maruten Seitenjo in Tokushima City as well as a generous filling of cabbage. Even the sauce is made in Tokushima. Other items on the menu include general okonomiyaki, modern yaki (okonomiyaki with noodles inside), negiyaki (okonomiyaki featuring green onions), yakisoba (fried noodles), and fish cutlets, a Tokushima delicacy.

Kamameshi Shizuka Koen-ten is a restaurant renowned for kamameshi (a Japanese rice dish cooked in a small iron pot) that has been in business since 1959. The restaurant is located at the entrance of Nara Park, directly opposite Nara National Museum.

The signature dish, kamameshi, is made to order and carefully cooked in a pot. The pot is directly brought to your table piping hot, and if you keep the lid on the pot while you eat it, the rice that’s in contact with the inside surface forms a savory okoge (scorched rice), which you can enjoy at the end of the meal. The menu features seasonal specials such as shirasu (baby sardines) in springtime, kuri (chestnuts) and matsutake mushrooms in autumn, and kaki (oysters) in winter.