Food & Drink
Chikushitei is a jewel of a restaurant making it one of Oita’s, if not Kyushu’s, finest. A traditionally formal entrance lends an almost hidden-in-plain-view feel to Chikushitei…
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A jewel in Oita's world of cuisine.
There are many producers of alcoholic beverages dotted throughout Oita Prefecture, a result of the qualities of spring and well waters found here. Its is particularly famed for its…
Touinryo is an unexpected gem; an historic building from the 1880s that has been refurbished and repurposed as a delightful gallery and cafe. Located a short walk from the La…
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An unexpected but popular destination for art, food and good company on the Kunisaki Peninsula's north coast.
Myoho Asari is on a lifetime’s mission to spread knowledge about koji, a key ingredient of Japanese cuisine. Myoho represents the ninth generation of Kojiya Honten, a family-owned…
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A long-established purveyor of an essential ingredient of Japanese cuisine.
The husband and wife proprietors of Pokala relate how the locals thought they were crazy to open a curry restaurant in Usa’s rural hinterland some 30 years ago. After all, who on…
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Although out of the way this curry restaurant is well-worth the journey.
Any gourmet passionate about fish has to make the journey to Saiki, which boasts the widest range of fresh fish found anywhere in Japan. Lying off the intricate coast of Saiki is…
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In a nation known for its seafood, Saiki is a pescatorial paradise.
Fugu blowfish is a peculiarly Japanese delicacy known as much for its delicious taste as its potential deadly side effects if prepared by the unqualified chef.
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The last word in fugu cuisine.
Step through the doorway of Kamoshika Shoten, in central Oita City, and it is apparent that the owner, Shinsaku Iwao, has a passion for the printed word and a knack of creating…
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A discreet gem of a bookshop and cafe.
Being established for over 130 years is a good sign that the fundamentals of any business are sound. The owner-chef, however, is not resting on his predecessors’ nor his own…
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A lively and tasty restaurant popular with locals and visitors alike.
Kitsuki Terrace is a recent addition to the seafood barbecuing establishments, popular with locals and visitors alike, that are found strung out along much of Oita’s coastline.…
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A popular modern seafood emporium in Kitsuki aside the Seto Inland Sea.
The seas of the Hoyo Straits are squeezed into narrows between Oita City’s Saganoseki and Sadamisaki, Shikoku’s distinctive peninsula that stretches out like a long limp finger…
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Prized mackerel from Oita's fertile seas.
To cross the threshold of Tomaya in Kitsuki is to go back in time. The current building, a delightfully quaint tea emporium, dates to 1875 but the business was first established in…
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An atmospheric shop and cafe sepcialising in local green tea.
Artegio defies easy classification but this elegant intimate yet eclectic space is a unique expression of Yufuin’s discreet charms. On a rise in the low foothills of Mt. Yufu-dake,…
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A beautifully curated eclectic small gallery, tea room and chocolatier.
Mamenomonya’s wife and husband team moved from Oita City to pursue their dream of owning a restaurant in the bucolic countryside of Ota village in Kitsuki. They brought life back…
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A rustic and delicious cafe in the countryside of the Kunisaki Peninsula.
An unusual name for an unusually eclectic space. Hi! Yoriyo, which is beautifully located in a small hamlet betwixt Taketa city centre and the Kuju Highlands, has been conceived by…
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An intriguingly pleasant cafe and gallery space found unexpectedly in Taketa's countryside.
Izumiya’s modest presence and diminutive size belies its outsized popularity. Queues of customers frequently form at its door to savour lushly delicious home-made ice cream in the…
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Exquisitely tasty hand-made ice cream.
The Monkey Mountain Craft Beer brewery is one of those pocket-sized delights that Japan as a whole excels in. Except that in this case an American is the source of its life and…
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A charming boutique craft beer brewery producing award-winning craft beers.
Top grade grapes for the table are grown widely in Kyushu and are a staple fruit during the summer months. Grapes for viticulture, the production of wine, are, however, much rarer…
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Oita's first winery and a must visit for anyone wanting aquaint themselves with Japanese wines from the grape.
Umeshu-gura Oyama, which combines a boutique umeshu plum winery and ume plum emporium, is heaven for any ume aficionado. Deep in Hita’s ume orchard countryside and aside the…
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A boutique prize winning umeshu winery adjacent to the wonderful Ume-Hibiki hotel.
The people of Oita Prefecture are reputed to eat more chicken meat than of any other prefecture in Japan. Two particularly popular chicken dishes are Toriten and Karaage. The…
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Oita's favourite dishes.
It is easy to overlook and walk past Inase, which seems to be hiding in the shade of the surrounding establishments in central Oita. Oita is a slick modern city and Inase’s…
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An atmospheric and popular restaurant in the centre of Oita City.
Oita Prefecture is replete with a wide range of delicious foods from its mountains, rivers, fields and seas, and the ise-ebi spiny lobster is, undoubtedly, a crowning glory in this…
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A autumn gourmet delicacy.
Although lesser known overseas, shochu, a refined vodka-like beverage that is made from a variety of sources including sweet potato, molasses and rice, is as widely drunk in Japan…
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Mugi-jochu, a refined wheat spirit, is Oita's version of Kyushu's famed shochu tipple.
Being on the other side of the railway tracks is no indication of the quality of the cuisine served up at Minami-no-Kaze. Excellent family-run restaurants run by the Italia…
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A charming slow-food restaurant serving excellent Italian fare from breakfast through lunch to dinner.
Michi-no-eki wayside stations are a popular institution in Japan and, with 24 of them, Oita Prefecture has more than its fair share. Locals proudly run these shops, akin to…
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Locals and visitors alike flock to these wayside stations for local good-value produce and meals.
Although its name may suggests otherwise, Gallery Kan provides exclusive private gourmet experiences. In a village on a rise overlooking Beppu Bay, the owners have turned a wing of…
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Discreet and attentive private dining.
Wagyu marbled beef has earned a well-deserved reputation for exquisite taste, texture, and tenderness, and Bungo-gyu, wagyu cattle raised in Oita, has a reputation for being…
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Bungo-gyu, Oita's prize-winning, wagyu beef.
In Beppu’s Kannawa district steam derived from volcanic activity deep below the earth seems to rise up from every crevice in the ground. Onsen baths are plentiful here but a lesser…
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A fun and ecological way of cooking using water vapour from the earth's unlimited geo-thermal resources.
Visitors to Ota, a usually quiet village on the Kunisaki Peninsula, swell the local population by a factor of 30 or more over two days in mid-October when its popular Doburoku…
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A festival of raw sake that brings this sleepy village alive for two days each year.
A short drive out of central Saiki on the Tsurumisaki peninsula is Matsuura, a small hotel and restaurant that makes the most of its position on a coastal inlet overlooking a…
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Restaurant and hotel for seafood gourmets.
With more onsen hot springs than anywhere else in Japan, Beppu takes the crown as the nation’s top onsen hot spring destination. So much hot water wells up from beneath the ground…
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Legendary onsen hot spring town aside the Seto Inland Sea. Great views, thriving arts scene, great dining and nightlife.
Ume Hibiki draws its name from the ume plum orchards it is surrounded by and the glorious views it affords over the Hibiki Gorge. Located deep in the mountains in the south of…
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A beautifully designed and very comfortable onsen hot spring hotel overlooking a gorge.
Oita’s 774km long coastline is lined with fishing ports, both great and small, but only a few have a fish market. One exception is at Fukae, in Hiji on the Kunisaki Peninsula, a…
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Early risers can enjoy the bustle of a local fish market and buy the freshest fish at the lowest price.
Oga Farm is a bit of a misnomer as it is really a garden and a very pleasant one to boot. Beautifully sited with a southern aspect on a bluff overlooking Beppu Bay, Oga Farm is a…
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A charming rose and herb garden to relax in and leisurely savour.
Saiki is rightly famed for the quality and variety of the seafood caught off its intricate ria coast of peninsulas and bays, and one of the centres of the fishing industry is in…
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Accommodation with local purveyors of seafood for a visula feast and gourmet delight.
Chabo Shinanoya has been a mainstay of Beppu’s cafe culture since 1981, when the current owner inherited a traditional Japanese building, which had originally been conceived in the…
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A cafe of understated opulence and subtle flavours.
Customers flock to Toriya, a restaurant specialising in shamo. These stauresque gamefowl were originally bred for fighting - the written characters for shamo in Japanese literally…
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A farm-to-shop restaurant specialising in shamo poultry dishes.
Located in a quieter corner of Oita City’s lively Miyako-machi nightlife district is Nanbantei, a locally cherished teppanyaki restaurant. This unpretentious establishment with its…
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An iconic teppanyaki restaurant specialising in Bungo-gyu, Oita's prized wagyu beef.
Motomachi-bar, an easy going izakaya-style restaurant in the heart of Beppu’s nightlife district, specialises in Mediterranean cuisine with a sprinkling of Japanese panache.
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A popular, easy going eatery specialising in Mediterranean dishes.
200 years ago the then Daikan, the shogun’s representative in Hita, brought the ancient art of ukai cormorant fishing to Kyushu from Edo, Tokyo's original name.
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An unusual way to spend an evening watching cormorants fishing for your supper.
Tekizanso is a gracefully classic one story building that dates from the Taisho Period (1912-1925). Sited in a corner of what was once the grounds of Hiji-jo, the local daimyo…
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A grand villa, built by a gold mining tycoon for himself, that has become one of Oita's top restaurants.
Nishinokubo is beautifully sited in a hamlet overlooking idyllic rural scenery of stepped rice paddies. The husband and wife owners have opened their home up as a minpaku home-stay…
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Idyllic accommmodation in an idyllic location.
Not only does Tajimaya produce the best wagashi confectionary in Oita, its delicious products undoubtedly count amongst the best in Japan. After learning his trade at Fushimi near…
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An elegant, traditional Japanese shop that has been making and selling delightful wagashi Japanese sweets since 1804.
Everything about Mizushi-no-Mori exudes a quiet dignity and subtle elegance, a sense of nature and man in harmony. The realisation of a long-held dream, the proprietors, a husband…
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A beautifully located serene cafe and gallery.
A moreish noodle dish, available either as cold reimen or hot onmen, heralding from Beppu. The noodles, which are made from soba buckwheat flour, have an al dente bite and are…
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Beppu's distinctively different and delicious noodle dishes.
PEI, the acronym for Prince Edward Island, was for many years the sole western-style pub in the whole of Oita. Found in the heart of Oita City’s Miyako-machi nightlife district…
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A lively watering hole attracting Oita's mostly younger clientelle of foreign residents and local Japanese.
The exterior clean, white modernist architectural lines of Sousou-An are an eye-catching anomaly in the rural Kunisaki Peninsula. Yet these walls delineate within a completely…
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A stylish and eclectically furnished cafe in rural Kunisaki.
Soba Yuhi Cafe takes its name from the glorious sunsets, which here bask the placid waters of the Seto Inland Sea, and also the soba buckwheat noodle dishes that crowns its menu.…
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Coffee and light meals whilke enjoying spectacular sunsets over the Seto Inland Sea.
Commonly known in Japan as nihonshu, sake, which is fermented from rice, is widely recognised around the world as a distinctly Japanese drink. Although the cooler more northerly…
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The popular libation to the kami, Japan's gods.
Dango-jiru is one of Oita’s signature dishes. Kneaded, thick wheat noodles cooked with sliced shiitake mushrooms, onions and carrots in a miso soup make this a simple, yet…
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A delicious Oita delicacy.
Good coffee is not uncommon throughout Oita Prefecture, but Kotori offers one of the most sublime locations to relax in and savour a delicious brew. Kotori serves up a variety of…
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Any journey around the Kunisaki Peninsula’s northern coast should include a stop at Kotori for its artisanal coffee and more.
For a restaurant that has a long and complicated name, the dishes here are a celebration of their constituent ingredients brought together in a subtle and uncomplicated fashion.…
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Deliciously simple and tasty Italian-style cuisine with a Japanese artistic twist.
Simple gastronomy meets fast food service at Okamotoya, the home of jigokumushi steamed dishes cooked in the 'hells' of Beppu’s Myoban Onsen. Okamoto specialises in modest but…
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Steamed chicken and egg delicacies from Myoban Onsen's steaming hells.
Oita’s rich natural environment provides a wealth of produce and resources. Add in the locals’ creative talent and you have Oita Made, which brings the best of Oita’s foods, drinks…
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A curated selection of some of the best of Oita Prefecture's produce, arts and crafts.
The Hive has joined the long-established PEI pub in providing a western-style pub experience to both a Japanese and non-Japanese clientele. Unlike PEI, however, the Hive places an…
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An Irish-style sports pub.
For an intimate European-style ambiance and menu head to Bar Ponte, which is found on the edge of Oita City’s Miyako-machi nightlife district. Almost all seating is along the…
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A cozy restaurant specialising in Mediterranean cuisine.