10 Great Restaurants in Nara

Wakakusa Curry Honpo is located near Kintetsu Nara Station. This restaurant serves healthy, spicy curry using plenty of vegetables and spices, as well as deep-fried curry bread.

The special dish is Wakakusa Curry, a chicken curry thickened with spinach, tomatoes and other vegetables. You can specify the spiciness. There’s also a wide range of other unique dishes such as curry with the rich flavour of coconut milk, baked curry, and curry ramen noodles. Don't miss the hot, freshly made curry bread where a Wakakusa Curry-based sauce is wrapped in a crispy bun.

Maguro Goya (the name literally means “Tuna Hut”) is a restaurant specialising in tuna dishes located in the Higashimuki-Kita shopping arcade on the north side of Kintetsu Nara Station.

A wide variety of dishes are available, including sashimi, donburi rice bowls, and deep-fried tuna. Each sashimi and rice bowl menu is carefully categorised according to its portion and quantity, ranging from red flesh to fatty flesh of tuna. The rice bowls are very hearty, with sashimi placed on top of and even in-between the rice. This is the place to be for all tuna lovers. 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. For 60 years since its establishment, the restaurant has preserved the secret recipe for its special sauce.

Tokyo-style eel is steamed and drained of its fat before being grilled, making it more tender than Kansai-style eel. The building was renovated from a Kimono shop in the early Meiji era, and with jazz music playing in the background, the laid-back atmosphere ensures you'll have a great time.

Kikusuiro is a ryotei (Japanese-style high-end restaurant) that was founded in 1891. It's located in a site surrounded by beautiful nature, close to the primeval forest of Mount Kasuga. This stately building was constructed using materials from a famous temple and is designated as a Tangible Cultural Property. Because of its prestigious status, the restaurant is also used for weddings.

The cuisine prepared here is a superb selection of seasonal ingredients, with all the best flavours brought out in each season. You can enjoy traditional cuisine in sync with the annual events of the ancient capital of Nara in a relaxed atmosphere.

Kameya is an okonomiyaki (Japanese savoury pancake dish) restaurant that has been in business for more than 50 years near Kofuku-ji temple on Sanjo-dori. It's conveniently located just a 5-minute walk from Kintetsu Nara Station.

The modan-yaki with yakisoba (pan-fried noodles) and the inakkapei with udon noodles are both hearty dishes, but the most famous is daibutsu-yaki, a green onion pancake almost 40 cm in diameter. The word "Daibutsu" is written on the surface with mayonnaise. It's filled with lots of ingredients such as leeks, squid, shrimp, and beef, yet the dough is quite thin, and the portions are easy to manage.

The concept of China Dining Hiten is that of a Chinese restaurant in an Asian resort. Décor and furnishings imported directly from Bali create a stylish atmosphere.

It's conveniently located just a 3-minute walk from Kintetsu Nara Station and serves authentic Chinese cuisine at a reasonable price. In addition to standard Chinese dishes such as sweet-and-sour pork and mapo tofu (Sichuan-style bean curd), it offers a wide variety of original dishes such as fried rice with Nara's famous narazuke (vegetables pickled in sake lees), and there’s even a vegan menu available.

Monsieur Pepe is a French restaurant and café located next to Nara Park and opposite the Nara National Museum. It offers home-style French dishes in a relaxed setting.

It also has a solarium filled with gentle sunlight. Children are welcome, and there’s even a terrace where you can enjoy your meal with your pets. The menu is full of carefully prepared rustic, savoury French flavours. Make sure you try the buckwheat flour galette, handmade quiche and individually crafted sweets.

Harishin is a Japanese restaurant in Naramachi, the old town area of Nara. It was built about 250 years ago as a money-changer's building, and today is used as a classy restaurant.

A shokado bento (traditional Japanese boxed lunch) called kamitsumichi bento is one of the specialities here. It's named after Kamitsumichi, an ancient road from the Nara era that stretches in front of the restaurant. It features a unique menu, including sesame tofu made with Yoshino kudzu (starch extracted from kudzu roots) as an appetiser and so (an ancient Japanese cheese), and all of the dishes are beautifully presented with seasonal ingredients.

Akordu, which means "memory" in the Basque language, is a restaurant with over 1,150 square metres of grounds on the site of the former Todai-ji Temple precincts at the foot of Nara Park, with Mount Wakakusa in the background.

Akordu promotes the concept of "Local Consciousness". Using creative inspiration, it offers the best cuisine by making the most of and combining local ingredients. Its culinary style is innovative. Neither French nor Spanish, this unique cuisine is prepared with passion and served with akordu's own unique flair. You'll also enjoy the seasonal scenery in the light-filled rooms, all of which open onto a lawned garden.

Mangyoku is an izakaya (Japanese-style pub) located in Ganriincho, an area that still retains the atmosphere of a hanamachi (Geisha district). It was originally a geisha house called Mangyoku-ro, built in 1742, and hasn’t really changed much since then.

Although it's only a 5-minute walk from Kintetsu Nara Station, it’s easy to miss because of its modest appearance, blending in with the old townscape. The interior furnishings also convey a sense of history. The menu is mainly Japanese, including vegetable and fish dishes, but there are also Western-style dishes, and you can spend a relaxing time here with carefully selected sake, beer, wine, whiskey, and other drinks.