Breakfast to Midnight: Eating Your Way Through Hiroshima

Hiroshima eats with conviction. This is a city that argues (and wins) about pancake architecture, farms a large share of Japan's oysters in its bay, and finishes the night with noodles. Here is a day of eating it properly, dish by dish.

Key facts

• Signature dish: Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki, layered — never mixed — with soba noodles inside
• From the bay: oysters, grilled, fried or raw in season
• Sweet icon: momiji manju, the maple-leaf cake of Miyajima

Morning: coffee, bakeries and a bento decision

Start gently: Japanese city mornings belong to kissaten coffee houses and bakery trays. Around the Hondori arcade you'll find thick toast, egg sandwiches and strong drip coffee. If Miyajima is on today's route, note that anago-meshi — grilled conger eel over rice — is the region's famous ferry-side bento, sold near the piers; locals buy it early.

Midday: okonomiyaki, the Hiroshima way

The main event. Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki is built in strata on the teppan: a crepe-thin batter, a mountain of cabbage, bean sprouts, pork, a tangle of soba noodles, a fried egg, and a glossing of sweet-savoury sauce. Watching it assembled is half the meal. Okonomimura, the multi-storey "okonomiyaki village" downtown, stacks dozens of griddle counters under one roof — pick the one whose rhythm you like and sit at the steel.

Afternoon: oysters and a maple-leaf cake

Hiroshima Bay is oyster country, and stalls and restaurants serve them grilled in the shell, deep-fried as kaki furai, or raw when the season allows. Balance the brine with a momiji manju — the little maple-leaf-shaped sponge cake filled with red bean, custard or chocolate, best eaten warm; the deep-fried version is a Miyajima street-side favourite.

Evening: noodles, sake and the local heat

Hiroshima's second noodle religion is tsukemen — cold noodles dipped into a chilli-hot sauce — alongside shirunashi tantanmen, the broth-less Sichuan-style bowl the city has made its own. Pair either with sake: the brewery town of Saijo, a short train ride east, is one of Japan's most storied sake districts, and its labels pour all over the city.

Between meals: lemons, and a word on seasons

Hiroshima Prefecture is Japan's leading producer of lemons, and the Setouchi fruit turns up everywhere once you notice it — squeezed over fried oysters, folded into cakes and soft-serve, bottled as syrup and liqueur in every souvenir shop. Seasons matter here more than in most Japanese cities: oysters are at their best in the cold months and the bay hosts oyster festivals in winter, while summer belongs to cold noodles and beer gardens on department-store roofs.

Midnight: the izakaya alleys

End west of the station in the lantern-lit izakaya lanes locals call Ekinishi, or in the bar-packed blocks of the Nagarekawa district: skewers, a last beer, perhaps one more round of gyoza. Kitchens here understand the midnight appetite.

Tip: At an okonomiyaki counter, eat straight off the griddle with the small metal spatula — asking for a plate is allowed, but the steel keeps every bite hot.