Travel

How to Eat Well in Japan: The Strategies You Need for a Delicious Trip

Your stress-free guide to picking the right restaurants, booking the toughest tables and bypassing the hourslong ramen lines. 

Fine dining in Japan

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Six weeks before I embarked on a research mission in Kyoto, I was sitting alone at a bar counter in Melbourne. Next to me, a woman was bragging loudly to a friend: She, too, was heading to Kyoto, I quickly discerned. Except her trip was in four months. And she’d just pulled an all-nighter booking restaurant reservations.

As I snooped on the conversation, I broke out in a sweat, panicking because I’d yet to secure a single table. Then I remembered: Eating well in Japan is absolutely not something to lose sleep over.