Fukuoka’s buzziest entertainment district is set to welcome a new landmark this April. Located right in the heart of Tenjin, state-of-the-art multiuse complex One Fukuoka Bldg. is filled with shops, restaurants, bars, offices and, on the 18th and 19th floors, a lifestyle hotel with a bar and lounge where you can admire a panoramic view of Hakata Bay.
When you feel the need to fuel up, go down: the first basement floor is all about food. Here you’ll find iiTo Tenjin, the largest restaurant hall in the Tenjin area with its eight eateries and 450 seats. You can enjoy a wide variety of cuisines on the premises, and the hall’s lighting and background music change throughout the day, putting a fresh twist on each visit.
On the same floor is also Tenjin Norengai, an alleyway-style collection of seven restaurants ranging from long-established local favourites to refined dining spots with national pedigree. In this guide you’ll find some of our favourite things to eat and drink at iiTo Tenjin and Tenjin Norengai.
Savour Mediterranean flavours with a local twist at this comfy Italian restaurant that serves a selection of pastas for lunch and adds a parade of wine-compatible bites to the menu in the evenings. Meals highlight produce from coastal Itoshima, which is also where the citrus fruits used in Pochi-Ito’s shochu sours come from.
Meat’s all over the menu at Onikuya Yoshimi, a carnivore haven where conspicuous signs beseech you to ‘Enjoy Beef!’ That’s no big ask here – the quality is high throughout, from staples such as steak over rice to limited-time specials. Power up with a meal here and you’ll be ready to explore Fukuoka for hours on end.
Culinary worlds collide in the kitchen of head chef Kazumi Kadohisa, a veteran of restaurants as far afield as the US and Bali, as he conjures up French-inspired dishes with Kyushu ingredients. Combining a casual atmosphere with uncompromising quality, Le Bistro Aki is the kind of spot that lends itself just as well to post-work drinks as it does to an indulgent special occasion.
Revered among boozehounds for its ultra-low prices, cosy atmosphere and selection of sake from throughout southern Japan, standing-only pub chain Tachinomi Tatanbar has outposts as far afield as Okinawa, but this is its only location in Fukuoka. With small dishes starting from ¥100 and drinks from ¥400, a couple of thousand yen go a long way here.
If you’re looking for an edible gift to take home or bring a friend, make a beeline for this specialist grocery and café-bar. It stocks an extensive selection of domestic and imported snacks, condiments, drinks and more, while the adjacent sit-down eatery’s menu provides delicious examples of how to incorporate these ingredients into your own cooking.
It’s local greens galore at this elevated salad specialist, where a rotating selection of seasonal specials accompanies a regular menu of filling mixtures such as grilled chicken gizzard with Korean-style mung bean sprouts, and herb chicken with an array of colourful veg. Topping and dressing combinations can be customised to your liking.
A veritable shrine to Yebisu, one of Japan’s favourite fancy beers, this classy bar has the brand’s entire line-up on tap. Boldly, they even let you order mixtures of two different beers, and have a lengthy food menu replete with dishes guaranteed to pair well with the brews.
Fry some rice, wrap it in an egg and sprinkle your sauce of choice over the goodness – hey, you’ve just put together some omurice, a filling staple of Japanese home cooking. This long-established specialist eatery is famed for taking liberties with its signature dish: they serve it in forms ranging from stew and gratin to lasagne.
Tonkotsu (pork bone broth) ramen originated in Fukuoka and remains the city’s most famous dish. Hakata Issou does it better than most, with an addictive combination of flat artisanal noodles and foamy ‘cappuccino-style’ soup. This outpost specialises in tsukemen (dipping noodles), a concoction in which the mellow sweetness of pork pairs perfectly with umami-rich seafood aromas.
Loved by the locals for decades, this venerable yakitori (grilled chicken skewers) specialist offers a remarkable variety of chicken cuts, all prepared carefully one by one by a crack crew of grill masters. Don’t miss their signature Hakata Torikawa chicken skin, which is grilled until it’s crispy on the outside while remaining satisfyingly juicy on the inside.
Motsunabe is a rich and hearty stew of offal simmered with vegetables that’s considered a local speciality of Fukuoka. At Ooyama you’ll find the innard-warming dish in three orthodox varieties: flavoured with miso or soy sauce, or served without extra condiments or garlic, mizutaki (‘water-boiled’) style. The stall-style spot caters to solo eaters, too.
When this sushi-focused pub opened its first location in Osaka back in 2020, it kicked off a nationwide trend of izakaya specialising in fresh seafood dishes that go swimmingly with booze. And the hype’s warranted: Sushi Sakaba Sashisu offers a rare combination of carefully selected ingredients, reasonable prices and a laid-back atmosphere.
At the end of a long day walking around Fukuoka, a hearty teishoku (‘set meal’) built around super-fresh fish sourced from the Nagahama Fish Market hits different. Scope out the lengthy counter up front, grab an open seat, and choose your favourite from the long list of mains to go with sizeable servings of rice, soup and pickles.
Bouya is a grill-it-yourself yakiniku barbecue restaurant noted for sourcing its brand-name wagyu whole. Buying entire cows enables them to keep prices low while serving up an array of cuts you’d be hard-pressed to find elsewhere in the area. The restaurant’s attention to detail extends to its side dishes, with the star of the show being Morioka-style cold noodles (reimen).
A type of pan-fried batter, monjayaki is Tokyo’s answer to okonomiyaki, the iconic dish of Hiroshima and Osaka. Try it at the only Kyushu outpost of Tamatoya, a venerable specialist restaurant from Tokyo that’s run by a seafood broker with 150 years of history. Take the opportunity to explore the plentiful selection of seafood sides, too.