How to Plan a Kid-friendly Food Tour of Japan

“However what’s going to occur to Japan?”

This was one of many final questions my spouse, Laura, and I requested ourselves throughout a years-long debate about whether or not to have youngsters. Trivial because it might sound when stacked in opposition to the tasks of procreation, Japan was no informal consideration. We’d been carrying on a torrid threesome with the nation for nearly so long as we’d been collectively. We fell in love in Japan, honeymooned in Japan, and spent months touring the nation collectively after I was researching Rice, Noodle, Fish, a e book I wrote with Anthony Bourdain again in 2015.

As harmless as we had been in these pre-parenting days, we knew sufficient to grasp that all the pieces can be irrevocably modified by having children. We feared that the magic of Japan — the tiny eating places; the quiet, contemplative areas — can be compromised by our new touring companions. So, we resolved to shelve Japan till our kids had been no less than sufficiently old to spell omakase.

However by the point our oldest son, Diego, was 4, and his little brother Dylan was round eight months, we might really feel the itch spreading. We had been anxious: not simply to return to Japan, however to check our mettle as a household. Might we nonetheless wander the world for weeks, even months at a time — and would we wish to? And the way would these little people have an effect on our relationship with the locations most sacred to us?

So Laura and I made a decision to journey to Japan as if it had been our first time: Tokyo and Kyoto, plus perhaps a aspect journey or two. Alongside the best way, we deliberate to share as a lot of our collective ardour for the nation with our kids as attainable — the wonders of the comfort shops, the science of noodle slurping, the magic of an evening in an historic ryokan.

If the journey was a hit, we instructed ourselves, perhaps our two boys would come to like this nation as a lot as we do. And perhaps — perhaps! — Laura and I might study to like Japan in a brand new approach.

What might probably go mistaken?

Day 1 

Shibuya, Tokyo

It doesn’t matter if it’s your first or your fiftieth go to to Japan, these preliminary hours on the bottom hit like nowhere else on the earth. We journey to stimulate our senses in wild and unpredictable methods, and at no time are they extra heightened than within the inaugural moments of a stroll by means of Tokyo. Each tiny element registers at an elevated pitch. Take benefit: meals tastes higher; beer slides down simpler; neon shines brighter. 

Once we step out of the taxi at 11 p.m. that first cool November evening in Shibuya, Diego has one factor on his thoughts: ramen. Laura and I share this singular focus, so we enterprise off by means of the buzzing aspect streets, thick with the weekday post-work rabble, to Oreryu Shio-Ramen, a slurp store for the late-night crowd.

Inside minutes, earlier than we’ve even breached our shimmering bowls of yuzu-scented broth, a bunch of well-lubricated Japanese businessmen and ladies sits down beside us and does the unthinkable: they seize Dylan, our child boy, passing him between them like a sizzling mic in a karaoke bar, cooing a number of notes earlier than handing him off to the following in line.

I had hoped for a second like this. For all the pieces I like about Japan, I’m usually conscious of the space between me and its individuals. A part of this comes all the way down to social norms — the Japanese worth privateness, humility, and discretion. A part of it’s linguistic: my Japanese stalled out years in the past at a number of fundamental phrases and a few meals vocabulary. The youngsters, I reasoned, would assist tear down the partitions that naturally exist between locals and foreigners. 

The truth that these partitions come down earlier than we take our first slurp in Tokyo suggests one thing particular may very well be in retailer through the days forward.

Day 2 

Roppongi, Tokyo

Any nice love affair with Japan begins with meals, and ours was no completely different. There was that tangle of pure buckwheat soba topped with slices of simmered duck; the espresso ceremony so delicate and religious it felt like a spiritual expertise; the breakfast bowl of steamed rice and uni devoured earlier than daybreak.

After 20 years incomes a dwelling as a meals author, there may be nothing I gained’t eat. Nevertheless it wasn’t at all times this manner. Fact is, if I had gone to Japan after I was 4, I most likely would have starved. Nuggets, fries, mac and cheese: beige was the one coloration I allowed to enter my physique. My children can be completely different, I reasoned. I deliberate to lift them in a house that valued meals above all — walks to the market within the morning, shelling peas and stirring sauces within the night. And but, they’ve someway remained impressively impervious to the wonders of native elements and seasonal cooking.

4 years in, I can solely say that consuming stays a piece in progress. Early on in our Japan journey, Laura and I resolve we’re not going to decide on the subdued counters of Tokyo and Kyoto as battlegrounds for our wrestle. As an alternative, we lean in to the meals we all know will land effectively. To ship us to deliciousness, we enlist the assistance of Shinji Nohara, a.okay.a. the Abdomen of Tokyo: a fixer for visiting cooks and foodies and a co-conspirator in all issues culinary throughout our years in Japan.

Shinji takes us to lunch at an outdated favourite: Butagumi, a two-story temple of tonkatsu on a quiet residential road in Roppongi the place panko-crusted pork is elevated to its highest attainable expression. Select the minimize and the provenance of your pig (a lean loin from Hyōgo Prefecture, say, or a marbled minimize from Kyushu) and let the pig whisperers do the remaining. As Diego fortunately chews by means of succulent pork and shattering panko, buying and selling tales with Shinji, I discover myself wishing this feast would by no means finish. 

For dinner, Shinji units us up on the counter at Shirokane Toritama, a venerable yakitori outlet on the backstreets of Kagurazaka that we’ve been coming to for a decade. The yakitori expertise itself is a collection of classes for the younger eater: within the alchemic energy of smoke and fireplace; within the complicated anatomy of the seemingly easy hen; within the all-important Japanese philosophy of mottainai, or “don’t waste it.” Diego doesn’t take to sunagimo (gizzard), however he develops an prompt love for bonjiri (hen butt), a phrase he’ll utter at random moments within the days forward, a lot to the confusion/delight/concern of any Japanese individuals who occur to be inside earshot. 

Once we step again into the evening, Diego is buzzing from the bonjiri. “We crushed that yakitori!” He high-fives Shinji and the 2 of them set off for the closest comfort retailer in quest of one thing candy. 

Day 3 

Daikanyama, Tokyo

The following morning, feeding off the momentum of yesterday’s movable feast, I wake with a head stuffed with plans. A stroll by means of the Modernist architectural wonders of Daikanyama, a go to to the magical Tsutaya bookstore, two lunches, two dinners. Now that we’re right here, it all of a sudden feels as if we now have quite a lot of misplaced Tokyo time to make up for.

However three blocks into the stroll by means of Daikanyama, Diego seems up and asks: “The place is the playground?”

Because the day goes on the plans proceed to fall, one after the other, into the compost bin of my once-great expectations. Parenting is nothing if not an emotional rollercoaster, however within the first 72 hours in Japan, it feels as if I’m within the clutches of a robust, harmful drug. Each jiffy I discover myself biking by means of a brand new emotion, cresting a wave of euphoria solely to have it crash right into a whitewash of exhaustion, frustration, and doubt.

Simply as I really feel the structure inside me start to buckle, we’re saved by a pool. Not simply any pool, however the infinity pool on the Trunk (Lodge) Yoyogi Park, a brand new department of one in every of Tokyo’s hippest resort manufacturers and our house base within the metropolis. As Diego splashes round fortunately and Dylan naps on a lounge chair, Laura and I take within the waterline of the pool because it disappears into Yoyogi Park’s rainbow of autumnal colours. Slowly, the gathering clouds start to half. Sippng our welcome cocktails, we degree with one another. “I believe we have to rethink our technique,” Laura says.

We decide on a brand new strategy: Two issues per day. One for them. One for us.

Day 4 

The Bullet Practice

When do your earliest recollections begin? When do the pictures in your thoughts develop from Polaroids into a movie reel? Mine are from a ship within the U.S. Virgin Islands, chopping a vector from St. Thomas to St. John, wind whipping by means of my hair, the solar warming the faces of my three brothers and our dad and mom. Like all good reminiscence, it could or will not be completely true, however in my thoughts, life started on that boat. 

I’ve requested lots of people the primary reminiscence query these previous few years, and so lots of the solutions I get contain journey. Tenting with dad and mom. Summer time trip in Hawaii. Moments that stick as a result of journey pushes all of us, even children, right into a heightened state of being. Displacement breaks by means of the mushy recollections of quotidian life.

If I needed to guess the place Diego’s recollections will start, I’m considering proper right here, within the embrace of a rushing bullet, hurtling south towards Kyoto.

It is a second I’ve been anticipating for years. The primary time I witnessed the shinkansen’s easy, elongated nostril pulling right into a station, my knees buckled. If a practice might try this to a twentysomething man, think about what it might do for a four-year-old boy.

We arrive at Tokyo Station an hour early, leaving loads of time to scour the sprawling consuming emporium surrounding the tracks. I attempt to persuade Diego of the virtues of ekiben — bento bins bought in practice stations that showcase every area’s specialties — however he solely has eyes for one lunch, a plastic mini-shinkansen crammed with a plethora of kid-friendly treasures: a child hamburger patty, a slice of sausage, a ball of rice with a smiley face long-established from sesame seeds. 

I go for an outdated favourite: gyutan from the town of Sendai, slices of grilled beef tongue slicked with soy and wasabi. After I crack the highest of the container, a hotter below the rice offers off a curl of steam that heats it up. God, I like this nation.

Judging by the fixed stream of chatter and the truth that, after he finishes his lunch, he reaches throughout the armrest to carry my hand, I believe my son may really feel the identical approach.

Day 5 

Kyoto

The Japanese are shocked to listen to that there isn’t a phrase in English to explain the sight of dappled mild filtering by means of the leaves of a tree, a phenomenon at the moment holding all however my offspring spellbound. What takes 10 phrases in English takes however one in Japanese: komorebi.

As we wander the grounds of our resort, Aman Kyoto, I too am shocked by the oversight in our language. If something, it denotes a troubling lack of appreciation for one in every of nature’s most bewitching phenomena.

Kyoto could also be greatest recognized for its sakura, or cherry blossoms, however for my cash, fall is one of the best time to go to the traditional capital. The ginkgo and maple timber flip the town right into a patchwork of autumnal majesty. I’m hooked on this mild and, like all self-respecting addict, am prepared to go to unreasonable lengths to chase it down.

The excellent news is that the Aman seems to be constructed as a tribute to the dance between mild and leaves. The Asano household, homeowners of a worthwhile textile firm, purchased the property within the Nineteen Forties with a plan to show it into essentially the most lovely backyard on the earth. To them, magnificence didn’t imply sakura, which they noticed as too flashy; magnificence meant maple. Immediately, 3,000 maple timber cowl the property, which recollects one other particular Japanese phrase: shinrin-yoku, forest bathing, an act of communion with all issues arboreal.

That evening, as Laura and the boys sleep off the final vestiges of jet lag, I slip out to the onsen for half-hour of contemplative soaking. I lie with my again in opposition to the graceful, heat stone, physique and mind buzzing from the cocktail of komorebi, shinrin-yoku, and 106-degree water.

My ideas run wild.

Why can we journey? I do know, I do know: few questions have been afforded extra ink over time, together with in these august pages, however in my cerebral onsen state, I’d like to supply a principle.

We journey in quest of the brand new and the wondrous, these lovely bedfellows of the younger thoughts. Our earliest years are powered by curiosity and marvel; we then spend a lot of our grownup lives attempting to rekindle that power. And no place evokes marvel within the traveler as deeply and constantly as Japan. At each flip, the discoveries go away you awestruck: The conductor who bows to an empty practice automobile. An 80-year-old apprentice. A calendar that marks not 4, however 72 (micro) seasons.

Possibly the query isn’t what’s going to occur to Japan, as I wrote earlier, however what occurs to all of the issues we love? How does the presence of latest people in our lives irrevocably alter the best way we see the world?

Ultimately, we journey as a result of it’s the closest we are able to get to changing into a child once more.

Day 6 

Arashiyama, Kyoto

For the higher a part of per week, we now have assiduously averted the form of meals we used to take 12-hour flights for, embracing as a substitute a gradual stream of noodles, crispy pork, and grilled meat on sticks. Ramen and yakitori show dependable day by day staples, buttressed with an ever-rotating roster of convenience-store snacks.

However right now is completely different. Immediately, we go to Tempura Matsu.

Years in the past, I wandered right into a kaiseki counter on the outskirts of Kyoto and had a meal that may change my life. Not within the overused superlative approach of contemporary meals writing, however within the truest sense. After dinner, I begged the proprietor, Shunichi Matsuno, and his son Toshio to let me stand at their shoulders and watch them work — shopping for blowfish on the morning market, unearthing tender bulbs of bamboo from dense inexperienced forests, sharing easy household meals earlier than service. I devoted a chapter to the expertise in Rice, Noodle, Fish, and the Matsuno household traveled to New York to cook dinner for our book-release social gathering. Shunichi, the bighearted patriarch, handed away a number of years later.

Later, Diego was born on the anniversary of Shunichi’s passing, a karmic connection that the Matsunos take very significantly. As can we. I spent many hours within the run-up to the journey telling Diego about our Kyoto household, and concerning the magical restaurant they function alongside the Oi River in Arashiyama. Upon arrival, we’re showered with consideration and a Santa sack of superbly wrapped presents. As Mama-san picks up Diego and lifts him towards the sunshine, a path of tears slides down her cheeks.

Behind the hickory counter, in a beneficiant open-air kitchen, Toshio Matsuno works his sorcery. He grills planks of Wagyu on metallic skewers, carves fat-frizzled dominoes from a lobe of untamed tuna stomach, whisks white miso right into a pot of boiling dashi. He serves Laura and me the complete omakase — a stunning sequence of tastes and textures that fire up my long-burning love for this household and its cooking. For Diego, Toshio has made one thing particular: handmade ramen noodles with somewhat sidecar of dipping sauce. I breathe a sigh of reduction, and we bathe Toshio with arigatos and half-bows.

However when it comes time to eat, Diego’s chopsticks don’t budge. “These aren’t the ramen noodles I like,” he protests. I’m not amused. I lean over the bowl and in my most menacing whisper, guarantee him there is no such thing as a different meals in all of Japan if these noodles don’t get slurped.

Toshio returns with a little bit of tempura, hoping the crispy candy potatoes and shrimp will break the standoff. However they don’t. I eat them, bitterly, and the wrestle continues. I swing from offended to determined, but the extra I push, the tougher he stands his floor. Laura tries to interrupt the deadlock within the swish approach solely moms can do, however neither of us budge.

We pull out in a taxi, the Matsuno household bidding a spirited goodbye from the sting of the property. Because the final waving hand and bowing waist disappear within the dusky rearview, I blink away tears — unsure about what, or who, precisely, I’m crying for.

I flip to Diego to say one thing conciliatory, however he’s already asleep.

Day 7 

Gion, Kyoto

To clean away the Matsu hangover, I want a simple win. I enroll us in “Ninja College” — a category on the Samurai Ninja Museum. 4 years in the past, I might have shuddered on the considered such shameless vacationer bait; right now, I’m manically refreshing the web site, determined for 2 slots in right now’s class.

The trainer is a tall, slender twentysomething whose wry humorousness is wasted on his college students, who solely have eyes and ears for the weaponry ready behind him. First, we sort out the ninja stars. Product of arduous plastic, they sink into the Styrofoam wall with an honest flick of the wrist. Subsequent we transfer on to katanas, or samurai swords, then lastly to the sacred blowguns.

Seeing Diego wrapped in black, blowing fake darts from a metallic tube, is sufficient to make the desperation I felt throughout our meal a figment of the previous. When Laura hears concerning the class, she feels a pang of jealousy for having missed out on the enjoyable, so she and Diego re-enroll whereas I enterprise out temple hopping with Dylan.

For all the main focus we’ve paid to our older son, it’s the child Japan is most taken with.

In all places we take Dylan, he instructions an viewers. Possibly it’s the blond hair, the chubby cheeks, the high-wattage permasmile. Or is it simply that I by no means actually understood how a lot the Japanese love infants?

I carry Dylan in a BabyBjörn for hours a day on my chest, pointing him at individuals like a flashlight to observe their faces mild up. I discover that it really works particularly effectively within the quietest corners of Kyoto. Take him to a temple and he’ll deliver the home of holy down. One thing concerning the juxtaposition of hushed contemplation and guffawing child makes individuals unreasonably blissful.

However the fact is that there aren’t many quiet corners left on this metropolis. The crowds in Kyoto are each bit as large as I’ve been warned — larger, in reality. Japan was projected to obtain 35 million guests in 2024, and that afternoon, as we amble alongside the outskirts of the Gion, it seems like most of them are concentrated within the temples of Kyoto.

However, Dylan and I push on, winding our approach down the Thinker’s Path — the place Nishida Kitaro, one in every of Japan’s most well-known thinkers, practiced meditation — in quest of enlightenment. There are greater than 1,600 temples and shrines on this metropolis; certainly a few of them nonetheless supply solitude, I inform myself. 

We move Nanzen-ji and its pulsing crowd. Heian is a thicket of tourists. Between the 2, a three-hour line on the world’s most lovely Blue Bottle Espresso: a temple of caffeine and pastries. 

On the Shōren-in, we climb staircase after staircase, previous ever-thinning crowds, till we discover ourselves alone in a tatami-lined room perched on the fringe of the temple complicated. Beneath, a small cemetery, and past, the sprawl of better Kyoto within the fading afternoon mild. By now Dylan is asleep, and the intimacy of the second — unthinkable only a few hundred yards down the mountain — awakens one thing deep inside me.

A ringing bell, a department of birds, a refrain of monks, and the rhythms of your child dreaming in your chest. The magic is alive, there to be unearthed simply paces from the pandemonium.

Day 8 

Common Studios Japan, Osaka

We hadn’t deliberate to go to Osaka. We wished this to be a easy journey, with as few stops as attainable. However by the tip of our keep in Kyoto, the siren name of Japan’s most underrated metropolis turns into an excessive amount of to disregard. Not simply due to the individuals — these famously humorous, hospitable denizens. Not simply the delicacies: the pitch-perfect mix of high-low that I crave, the place you possibly can eat uni from the island of Hokkaido at a raucous road stand, or spend 4 hours within the palms of a seventh-generation grasp at one in every of Osaka’s formidable counter-style kappo institutions.

All of that has been purpose sufficient for my spouse and me to make Osaka a cease on each journey we take to Japan. However this time round, there’s one thing — or somebody — drawing us again.

Mario.

Osaka is house to Tremendous Nintendo World, a wildly widespread attraction inside the town’s department of Common Studios Japan. It’s the form of factor that the famously fastidious Japanese e book months prematurely, and that this infamously indecisive Spanish-American household most definitely didn’t. 

Fortunate for us, the sort people on the W Osaka are effectively versed within the methods of Western ineptitude, and after some mild pleading, they rating tickets for the ultimate day of our journey.

Briefly order, we uncover one thing that hadn’t crossed my thoughts in a dozen earlier journeys right here: Osaka is a superb metropolis for households. From the formidable aquarium, with not one however two big whale sharks circling its essential tank, to Osaka Citadel Park and (extra importantly) its wondrous playground, to the preponderance of informal eateries run by bighearted individuals, my love for this metropolis takes on a brand new dimension.

And but, after weaving by means of the ocean of cheery mascots and park staff that greets us on the gates of Common Studios, I’m skeptical. There’s an hour-long line for rainbow popcorn. Bus after bus of schoolchildren (“I wish to go to highschool in Japan!” Diego says). A wild collision of people memorializing their each second contained in the park.

However when Laura emerges from the reward store donning a floppy purple Mario cap, I’m reminded that we’ve entered a brand new age of journey, the place we have to embrace no matter sliver of overlap we are able to discover within the Venn diagram between our kids’s pursuits and our personal. After dropping in on the Minions and the Hogwarts alumni, the massive second arrives. Laura leads the best way into the Warp Zone, her Mario hat flopping backward and forward, Diego bouncing with equal power between us. Dylan hangs from my chest, kicking and cooing as we press by means of the darkness of that lengthy inexperienced pipe and into the brilliant mild past.

Once we emerge, it’s as if we’ve stepped by means of the display screen of my dad and mom’ rabbit-eared tv. Carnivorous vegetation snatch on the sky. Golden cash glint within the afternoon solar. Toad and Princess flip to handle the gang. Welcome to the Mushroom Kingdom. 

Diego does his little blissful dance. Dylan kicks and coos. Laura reaches out and squeezes my hand.

This place isn’t made for the youngsters. Nor for the dad and mom. It’s a second when the Venn diagram between us and them, between touring and elevating youngsters, between what we’ve misplaced and what we’ve discovered, turns into a full eclipse. 

Go to Tokyo

Trunk (Lodge) Yoyogi Park

After cornering the hip-hotel market with its Shibuya location, Trunk (Hotel) Yoyogi Park opened a second property in 2023 on the sting of Yoyogi Park. Whereas the rooms exude a pitch-perfect mix of Japanese design and Danish Modernism, the true draw is the rooftop pool, its infinity edge giving solution to the foliage of the park.

Butagumi

Present in a two-story home down a quiet aspect road in Roppongi, Butagumi is one in every of Tokyo’s high purveyors of tonkatsu, the panko-breaded pork with a mix of crunch and savory deliciousness that may conquer even the pickiest of eaters.

Shirokane Toritama

A sublime however accessible yakitori restaurant with places throughout the town, Shirokane Toritama gives greater than 30 completely different cuts of hen — from juicy momo (thigh) to chewy cartilage — plus an array of seasonal greens, all grilled over binchotan charcoal.

Go to Kyoto

Aman Kyoto

Aman Kyoto turned a storied maple forest within the quiet hills of this historic metropolis into an expensive sanctuary. It’s well worth the splurge for the refined minimalism of the rooms, the multicourse kaiseki feast on the restaurant, Taka-an, and the supremely tranquil out of doors onsen.

Tempura Matsu

Kaiseki, the normal multicourse eating of Kyoto, is just not made for the youthful set. However Tempura Matsu performs by its personal guidelines, from the relaxed service to the fashionable twists on Kyoto classics employed by chef Toshio Matsuno. (And in case your children don’t wish to take a look at their palates by means of 10-plus programs of fish, meat, and greens, Toshio-san serves a imply bowl of handmade noodles.)

Go to Osaka

W Osaka

The W Osaka is that uncommon resort that’s cool sufficient to appeal to a gradual stream of locals. Workers are effectively outfitted to assist households navigate all the pieces from toddler-friendly eating choices to discovering Warp Zones in Common Studios Japan’s surreal Tremendous Nintendo World.

Common Studios Japan

Osaka’s standing as a vacation spot for households — each Japanese and overseas — owes a lot to Universal Studios Japan. All of the fan favorites are there, however the true draw is Tremendous Nintendo World, which opened in 2021. Entry to this mind-bending mixture of mushrooms, Warp Zones, and Koopas requires its personal separate ticket; remember to e book prematurely.

Go to Nara

Fufu Nara

Japan’s historic capital is right now recognized for its temples and wild deer. Take all of it in from Fufu Nara, which gives a slick mix of outdated ryokan magnificence and new college consolation.

A model of this story first appeared within the December 2024 / January 2025 subject of Journey + Leisure below the headline “Household-Fashion.”