If your trip to Japan is guided mostly by your stomach, Osaka is the best place to start your feast.
Losing out to Michelin-starred Tokyo to the east, or the refined court cuisines of enchanting Kyoto to the north, Osaka, nestled down on Japan’s Kansai coast, is often underappreciated when it comes to food tourism. But if you’re considering a gourmet pilgrimage to this food-focused nation, Osaka means business.
Nakazaki-cho street in Osaka, Japan
With its local motto, ‘kuidaore’ (‘eat until you drop’), and its national nickname, tenka no daidokoro (‘the country’s kitchen’), here are our must-eats in the city that satiates.
Oknonmiyaki (savoury pancake)
Cooked DIY on a communal grill or by a deftly-handed chef who’ll flip together this cabbage pancake before your eyes, okonomiyaki is the king of Osaka’s cuisine. Mixing cabbage, eggs and a dashi-flavoured, yam-flour batter – as well as pork, noodles or anything else on offer (okonomi translates to ‘as you like’), this hearty dish is topped with mayo, sosu (a Japanese-style Worcestershire sauce), seaweed and bonito flakes.
Okonomiyaki is a very popular snack in Japan
Where to eat: Known as Osaka’s ‘soul food’, home-style restaurants make the most authentic okonomiyaki; family-run Mizuno has had lines out the door for more than 70 years.
Takoyaki (octopus balls)
The essential Osaka street food, these crisp balls are simply made with a dashi batter and studded with a chunk of tender octopus tentacle poured in a hole-filled cast-iron plate. Although a beloved street snack, takoyaki are said to pair perfectly with cold beer, so you’ll also spot them on menus in izakayas (Japanese pubs).
Mid-process to cooking takoyaki
Where to eat: Head to Dotonbori, Osaka’s lively food street, to see both tourists and locals alike lining up for takoyaki late into the evening.
Yakiniku (Japanese barbecue)
Less than one hour from neighbouring city Kobe, Osaka has access to some of the country’s most respected beef. Kobe’s Tajima-gyu cattle are said to listen to classical music, drink beer and get frequent massages – this relaxed life developing unique flavour with high marbling. Yakiniku restaurants offer tasting menus of Kobe beef from all parts of the cow, which you can cook to taste on the table’s grill.
Where to eat: The ancient laneway Hozenji Yokocho is praised for high-end yakiniku, but if you like it cheap and cheerful, catch the subway to Tsuruhashi, a station surrounded by lively barbecue options.
Horumon
A dish that originated in Osaka, horumon is similar to yakiniku but uses animal offal rather than choice cuts. Eating horumon is another communal, DIY barbecue experience and is thought to offer health benefits with its vitamins, minerals and high levels of skin-boosting collagen.
Where to eat: One of Osaka’s most famous restaurants for horumon is the cosy Yakinikuhorumon Sora Dōtonbori. And if you’re not brave enough to go all-out offal, it also – as the name suggests – serves yakiniku.
Kushikatsu (crumbed skewers)
These deep-fried skewers were popular with the working class during the 1930s, after the dish was invented by still-running Osaka restaurant Daruma. Now loved by everyone, anything goes when it comes to ingredients – pork tenderloin, shiitake and lotus root, quail eggs and asparagus are all popular picks. They’re served with a thin sosu dipping sauce – no double dipping!
Where to eat: The colourful, older neighbourhood Shinsekai is the original home of kushikatsu, with many restaurants open 24 hours. You can find Daruma’s first location here (as well as Dōtonbori) – their recipe is still top secret.
Seafood
Settled on Osaka Bay, the city’s seafood is some of the freshest. Dotonbori hosts a number of famed seafood sellers, including Zuboraya’s raw fugu, the toxic pufferfish, and Kani Douraku, an iconic crab restaurant seating more than 300 people. For high-quality sushi and sashimi, beeline to Osaka’s enormous Central Wholesale Market, where the ideal breakfast is raw tuna sashimi.
Osaka Central Wholesale Market is renowed as the Kitchen of Osaka and it’s the biggest fish market in Kansai Region
Where to eat: Kurumon Ichiba Market has been hawking some of the best seafood for more than 190 years and draws daily crowds for fresh sea urchin, buttery grilled scallops, fish cakes and sushi.
Ramen (noodle soup)
We’re not talking about the rich bowls of ramen celebrated across Japan (although Osaka certainly has its fair share). Instead, it’s the humble instant ramen, or cup noodles, first created in Osaka in 1958 by Momofuku Ando that have our attention. These noodles even have their own interactive museum, where you can learn their history, and even make your own cup noodle, choosing the flavour combinations and design.
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Kitsune udon
Udon and soba noodles are both perennial Japanese favourites, but in Osaka you’ll find that udon proliferates. A popular dish that originated here and pops up on menus across town is kitsune udon, a noodle soup swimming in dashi broth and topped with sweet deep-fried fried tofu.
Where to eat: Long-running udon institution Imai Honten in Dōtonbori serves up some of the best kitsune udon.
Details
Getting there: Osaka’s Kansai international airport hosts direct flights from Australia, or catch the Shinkansen bullet train from Tokyo in just two-and-a-half hours.
Staying there: If eating is your main motive, it’s best to stay near Dotonbori. Nipponbashi, Namba and Shinsaibashi are lively, convenient spots.
After youth-led protests in 2025, this year Nepal elected a 35-year-old former rapper as Prime Minister. In a country where tourism is its biggest industry, what’s next for travellers?
In 1986, Nepal changed its clock. It had used India Standard Time since 1920 so, to differentiate, it wound its clock 15 minutes ahead of, not behind, its big-brother neighbour. Boss move. “Nepal is strongly opposed to the idea that our identity is connected to India,” says Community Homestay Network (CHN) guide Bikal Khanal.
Tharu dance is traditionally set to hand drums. (Credit: Kate Lewis)
Today, Nepal is the only independent country with a 45-minute deviation to universal time; an oddity that’s become a symbol of national pride. The quirk is nearly as endearing as Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan airport where carved varnished wood and shiny red bricks rule. One sign points to a ‘Travelator’ and another to a ‘Grievance Handling Desk’ while visas are noisily stamped at customs for US dollars, cash only. When am I?
Spot the endemic Nepal gray langur. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
The 15 or 45 minute anomaly sees me tap out completely on timezone calculations. Why bend my brain calculating if it’s quarter to or quarter past elsewhere when I’m in the honking here and now of Kathmandu where the air is high-altitude crisp, the prayer flags flutter and the street dogs howl?
How tourism is changing in Nepal
Bardiya National Park is rich with wildlife. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
India is not the only association many Nepalis would like to shake. With eight of the world’s 10 tallest mountains, including Mount Everest and Annapurna, Nepal has long attracted mountaineers and trekkers, and expedition numbers are continuing to rise.
Tourism is one of the country’s biggest sources of foreign currency, so this growth is not negative, per se. But according to Ang Tshering Lama, who co-founded Phaplu Mountain Bike Club, being reduced to a mere trekking destination is limiting.
“Trekking is just one layer of our identity,” says Ang. “When it becomes the dominant narrative, it limits how we’re seen and how we see ourselves.” Nepal’s recent success, however, in diverting trekkers to less-trafficked areas such as Manaslu mofuntain, where visitor numbers rose by 117 per cent last year, offers hope that tourism can diversify even more radically.
Local men in Bhada village. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
The founder of CHN, Shiva Dhakal, wants that change. “The whole idea of the Community Homestay Network is to promote experiences outside of trekking,” he says. “Community tourism changes lives and helps kids stay home instead of coming to the city or migrating to the Middle East.”
Ang grew up seeing people leave, “not because they wanted to but because there weren’t enough opportunities to stay”, he states. Yet from remote villages to living traditions; food, art, music and emerging subcultures, “there’s so much that’s not being seen.”
CHN is opening some of those doors. It doesn’t own, or fund, any homes. Rather, it promotes homestays to travellers on a single, slick platform, while fostering entrepreneurship in places where women, marginalised castes, Indigenous people and the youth stand to benefit the most.
A new generation demanding more
Dalla Town Hall, where volunteers discuss anti-poaching tactics. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
The future prospects of next-gen Nepalis can no longer be ignored. On a Kathmandu tour with 33-year-old guide Monica K.C, we pass buildings torched in the September 2025 ‘Gen Z protests’, including the Supreme Court and Parliament House. Seventy-two people died. “They were anti-corruption protests,” says Monica. “Politicians’ children are living a lavish life but the airports are crowded with youngsters leaving to find work.”
We stop in ‘little Tibet’ at the wondrous sixth-century Boudha Stupa. “The wheel of life is Buddhism in a nutshell,” says Monica. “Things such as hate, ignorance and anger keep you rotating around the wheel, so you must follow the principles of Buddhism to detach. If you can’t, there’s no nirvana for you.”
Boudha Stupa’s prayer wheels are used to recite Buddhist prayers. (Credit: Kate Lewis)
In a sun-drenched twist to the usual temple visit, we ascend the stupa’s sloping plinth and roam its whitewashed dome. Tendrils of diaphanous prayer flags stream from a steeple-like structure where the Buddha’s unblinking eyes stare out. No nirvana for you…
Tibetan-style prayer flags embellish the whitewashed dome of Bouda Stupa, a Buddhist temple. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
The dome is delightfully free of guard rails or chiding from security. There is, however, a stern ‘No TikTok’ sign, perhaps in response to the youth’s newly flexed power. The booted-out Prime Minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, was replaced in a resounding election victory in March by 35-year-old Balendra Shah of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) – a former rapper and mayor of Kathmandu. The RSP’s manifesto indicates tourism is a priority, and that Nepal’s cultural identity in areas such as gastronomy will be strengthened.
Vibrant souvenir shops and cafes around Boudha Stupa. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
A more confronting stop awaits at Pashupatinath Temple. Today is Bala Chaturdashi, a Hindu festival where thousands of devotees gather to honour their dead ancestors. Vendors hauling foam mattresses do a lucrative trade as people set up for a night of vigil. This includes burning the bodies of recently deceased relatives on bamboo pyres in the Bagmati River, which flows into the sacred Ganges.
A woman at annual Hindu festival Bala Chaturdashi, in Kathmandu. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Wrapped in a shroud, the bodies are positioned with their heads facing north to the Himalayas where Lord Shiva resides. They’re covered with flowers and straw and set alight by male family members.
Hours later, the ashes are swept into the river where devotees will take a holy dip the next day. As much as Monica assures us it’s not voyeuristic to watch, I struggle to do so. “Here you see the reality of life because everyone ends up there,” she says, gesturing to the river.
Life unfiltered in the Terai region
Tharu woman and master weaver Parbati Chaudhary in Bhada Village. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
The reality of life needs processing time, which the western Terai region delivers in spades. The Terai is largely separated from India by the Karnali River and Bardiya National Park, where elephants, rhinos and the elusive Bengal tiger roam.
Once a nomadic tribe, the Indigenous Tharu people are now the largest ethnic group here. “They didn’t know their daily life was interesting for international travellers but they’re starting to understand now,” says CHN founder Shiva.
Take a Jeep safari through Bardiya National Park. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
We fly Buddha Air to Dhangadhi airport and drive five hours to stay in Tharu homes. The journey to Bhada village is a blur of roadside fruit stalls, traffic-stopping sacred cows and fields sown with wheat, rice, mustard, spinach, cauliflower and potatoes. Nepal’s agriculture feeds only Nepal.
Marigolds are an important part of Hindu rituals. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
“The only thing we export is young people,” says our guide Bikal. As the light dims and we plunge evermore rural, mysterious mounds of compacted hay – some house-sized – loom like the creatures from Where The Wild Things Are. Even our trusty driver gets flummoxed by a dirt road that abruptly ends and we find ourselves hurtling across a paddock.
On arrival, some are ferried to mud-walled cottages greened by gourd creepers, with thatched roofs and rustic-chic mosquito nets. Myself and two others are ushered to the home of corner store owner, mechanic and mushroom farmer Man Kumar Chilaruwa and his wife Rajkumari.
A warm welcome at a community homestay. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
They escort us to a bunker-esque back building with steel doors and a folding security gate, behind which is gleaming linoleum, dolphin-printed tiles and a shower cavity that must be gingerly stepped through to reach the toilet.
The ceiling lights emit a rainbow of colours (the bathroom light gets stuck in, frankly, a quite frightening red). We’re nevertheless touched that our hosts invested in all this bling when the average salary is around $275 a month.
In the coming days, we participate in Tharu traditions such as making moonshine, dancing, weaving straw handicrafts and gold-panning. We’re fed well with staples of rice, mustard greens, lentil pancakes, daal, curried chicken and tomato chutney served on antibacterial saal leaves.
Dig in. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Sonara community homestay president Indradevi Tharu tells us river snails are often served, and the boiled and pickled flesh of rats hunted in the rice fields. “Perhaps next time?” we say and all have a laugh.
The power of community homestays
Barda community homestay owners Parbati Chaudhary and Ram Krishni Devi Chaudhary. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
Immersing Western visitors in foreign cultural practices is not new. But with the Tharu, I never get that uneasy sensation that I’m being performed for. Despite being the only tourists, there’s no ‘othering’; just warm, composed and ultra-dignified welcomes. Like we’ve always been here.
“I love to have travellers in my village so I can see the world,” says local woman Parbati Chaudhary. “Why would I travel the world when the world comes to me?”
The graceful acceptance the Tharu offer, as well as the slow pace, works miracles on my frazzled nervous system. One day I even take a nap on a vacant homestay bed.
An authentic stay in the Sonara community. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Roosters strut and goats bray as we sit on the ground in al fresco kitchens, rolling rice flour into cylinders steamed to make dhikri (dumplings). When water is needed, we fetch it using a hand-operated pump as a family of ducks strolls by, side-eying us like curious neighbours.
Animal lovers will delight in Tharu villages. Kind and resourceful inventions are everywhere, such as snacking stations where two posts lean together, with leafy boughs dangling on rope for baby goats to forage from.
CHN’s CEO, Aayusha Prasain, nods knowingly when one in our group says she cried when she left her host, Shayam Chaudhary, in Bhada. Shayam’s 17-year-old son, Prashant, had translated, which deepened the connection.
“Community tourism turns travel into a relationship, not a transaction,” says Aayusha. “It places decision-making power in the hands of local communities, especially women and youth.” Since 2018, CHN has hosted more than 4000 travellers from 52 countries in 408 households, and estimates women’s participation has increased by 381 per cent.
Elephant watch. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
In the Bardiya community, where vexing human-animal conflict has been a balancing act for decades due to elephants raiding crops, long-time homestay operator Salik Ram Chaudhary says young people keep the older ones on their toes.
Gathering greens. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
“We can’t keep homestays stagnant,” he says. “We have to upgrade our service and redefine our product or young people won’t see it as an attractive business. If we can keep evolving with this travelling trend we’re confident the youths will stay and continue it.”
Back in Kathmandu, Monica explains that after the deaths of young protestors in September, a determination had spread to not let their sacrifice be in vain. “We want to keep holding the government accountable,” she says. “We don’t know what situation we’re facing, but we’re ready to face it.”
Interested in Nepal but prefer to experience it in total comfort? Read our guide to luxury travel in Nepal.
