Kanazawa, Honshu, Japan

Last Updated on July 26, 2026

Culture, Crafts and Cuisine in Western Japan

My first impression of Kanazawa was monumental. Outside the central station, where most visitors arrive, is the Tsuzumi-mon gate, an enormous wooden structure fit for a giant. It is based on the tsuzumi drums used in Noh theatre and is an apt introduction to a city where traditional Japanese culture is flourishing. Kanazawa is a city on the west coast of Honshu, Japan’s main island, and is known as Little Kyoto for its well-preserved Edo-period districts. The city is home to beautiful shrines and temples, museums and gardens.  Along with its history as the gold leaf-producing area of Japan, Kanazawa also has outstanding seafood.

CUISINE

It is a truth travellers recognise that if you want to eat well in a city, ask local people which restaurants they frequent. We were staying the night in a restored machiya (traditional Japanese townhouse) and asked the concierge where he liked to eat sushi, for which the city is renowned throughout Japan.  He made a call to the chef/owner of his go-to sushi restaurant and gave instructions to the driver of the cab we hailed. We drove across town and were deposited outside the unprepossessing door of Ebisu Sushi. Somewhat hesitantly, we peered inside, where the chef, Keiichi Wajima, indicated that we sit at the two spaces left at the bar counter. He was an ebullient man who spent the night creating beautiful sushi to a great jazz soundtrack. In my experience, sushi chefs are often on the more serious side, but this chef openly enjoyed himself.  We ordered a sushi set and sat back to watch the magic which is the best part of small sushi eateries where the preparation of the meal takes place in front of you. Chef Wajima generously prepared more items than the menu indicated we should receive, and by the end of the meal comprising an array of omakase sushi, an enormous bottle of sake was presented with shots on the house. It was one of the best evenings out during a three-week trip, and the bill was very reasonable.

We were in such good spirits when we finally left that we opted to walk across the city to our accommodation, which took a good hour. Our route took us through the Higashi Chaya geisha district which was very quiet at night and a completely different atmosphere from daytime when it is popular with tourists and walking tours. We strolled on through the centre of town with its long commercial streets filled with the big brands and large hotels. Veering off down some alleys, we discovered the vibrant nightlife of Kanazawa with small eateries and bars bursting with people.

The following night we ate sushi again, at a restaurant I had read about. This was far more expensive and upmarket, with a formal and slightly austere atmosphere and very good quality food.  I was impressed to find a female sushi chef at the helm of this family-run restaurant that had been in Kanazawa for 71 years. She explained that she was one of only three sushi chefs in this city where sushi restaurants abound.

Our seafood journey continued when we were invited on a tour of Omicho Market, which dates back to the Edo Period. Being a Sunday, the covered market was packed with shoppers, stocking up on fish, fruit and vegetables. We strolled from stall to stall admiring local produce and sampling loach skewers, enormous creamy oysters and nodoguro, a local deep-sea white fish, served as a nigiri that is flame-seared to caramelise its buttery fat.

 We visited a sake shop that sells sake exclusively from Ishikawa, the local prefecture, where there are 36 breweries, many of which are small family businesses.  When I suggested I would like to eat kaisendon for lunch, our host guided us to a small eatery in the back of the market that I would not have found myself. It was packed in the late morning – in Japan, lunch is served from 11.30. What a feast we enjoyed. Kasidendon is a warm rice bowl dish topped with shellfish. This is one of the signature dishes of Kanazawa and is not to be missed.

Eating kaisendon at Omisho market is as close as you can get to the freshest shellfish in the city; the port is eight kilometres from the market. We ate every last morsel. I have eaten in several Japanese fish markets, and these are the places to seek out if you are after top-quality seafood, often at more reasonable prices than in the upmarket restaurants in the city that are supplied by the markets.

GARDENS

Kanazawa has terrific food, but it also has much else besides, with an impressive range of gardens. Chief amongst these is the Kenrokuen Garden, which is considered one of the top gardens in Japan.

Japanese gardens are judged on six criteria and Kenrokuen combines all of these features – spaciousness, panoramas, seclusion, water features, artifice, and antiquity. The garden is really a park and encompasses islands, waterfalls, streams, a stone pagoda, bridges and lanterns, monuments, centuries-old Japanese pine trees, ponds, and views over the city. It also houses the shigure-tei teahouse, which dates back to 1774 and where visitors can enjoy a bowl of matcha tea and wagashi (traditional Japanese sweets) while overlooking a pond. Kenrokuen was a beautiful space in which to stroll on a hot and humid day. It was also the perfect spot to stop for a gold leaf ice cream from one of the cafes in the park. Kanazawa has long been the gold leaf centre of Japan, where gold leaf was used on the screens that adorned castles, temples and Buddha images.  Still today, gold leaf is in demand. Although it doesn’t have any discernible taste, it was fun to eat an ice cream covered in gold leaf, which gave it that wow factor.

Alongside Kenrokuen is Kanazawa Castle, which is also located within a park. Visitors can walk around the remaining gates, keep and walls of the castle built here in 1580. Nearby is the stunning – and smaller – Gyokusen’an Garden which visitors can see while enjoying matcha tea and wagashi at the beautiful teahouse that overlooks it. This is one of the joys of visiting Japan; even if you are not a garden enthusiast, the beauty and variety of the Japanese gardens is breathtaking, and I find extra pleasure in the meditative taking of tea while drinking in, simultaneously, the bitterness of matcha with the sublime beauty of nature. Kanazawa is especially well endowed with gardens that make a visit to the city worth a place on your itinerary.

MUSEUMS

Kanazawa has a wealth of museums covering a wide range of interests from Noh theatre to local history, samurai to crafts.

My favourite museum was the 21^st Century Museum of Contemporary Art. The museum has become very popular with TikTokkers who come to make content about one particular installation. Titled The Swimming Pool, this artwork is created by Leandro Erlich, an Argentinian-born artist whose illusory works are displayed internationally. His installations are great fun and photogenic too. I discovered that, as a result of its popularity, there is a ticketing system for The Swimming Pool, with timed slots released each day online at 9 am.

The artwork in the museum is mainly displayed in subterranean rooms, while above ground the building is designed as a glass circle that overlooks a large, circular lawn. Dotted around the lawn are sculptures to walk into, sit on and interact with by artists including Anish Kapoor, James Turrell and Olafur Eliasson. On a very hot and humid day, we appreciated the air-conditioned, elegantly minimalist café restaurant where we recovered from the heat with iced lattes while gazing out over the sculpture garden.

One of the most beautiful museums I have ever seen is the tiny D.T. Suzuki Museum. He was a Buddhist philosopher who introduced Zen Buddhism to the West, and indoor visitors can learn about his work.  The minimalist Zen-like museum, designed by architect Yoshio Taniguchi, is a white box that sits on a Water Mirror Garden, surrounded by trees in the forest park outside the walls. It is a place of contemplation, with benches around the water garden, and arriving in the early morning, we were able to get a sense of the tranquillity that this space provides.

We enjoyed a visit to the Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art that showcases the craft traditions of the prefecture (region) in which Kanazawa is located. We discovered the local pottery style called Kutani-yaki (and later visited a pottery that has been making it for centuries), as well as a display on how gold leaf is produced, with Kanazawa producing 98% of Japanese gold leaf. There are also displays of traditional dyeing techniques, parasol making, basket weaving, woodturning, and exquisite lacquerware.

EDO-PERIOD DISTRICTS

During the Edo period (1603 – 1868), Kanazawa was ruled by the Maeda clan, a powerful samurai family who ruled their domain from Kanazawa Castle. They used their wealth to invest in and develop the cultural aspects of the city, as well as establish gardens such as Kenrokuen.

Kanazawa’s geisha districts were initially established in the 1800s. The modern city boasts two preserved geisha neighbourhoods as well as a samurai district dating back to the Edo Period. In the largest of the geisha areas, Higashi Chaya, we strolled the small streets lined with dark-wooden machiya (traditional townhouses) now filled with boutiques, cafes, and restaurants. This is a very popular tourist area, so visitors are well advised to walk these streets early in the morning so as to admire the traditional architecture and atmosphere before the walking tour parties arrive.  

I particularly enjoyed a visit to the Ochiya Shima museum, traditionally a teahouse where customers were entertained by geisha and drank sake. Built in 1820, it remains largely as it was back in Japan’s feudal Edo Period. We enjoyed a bowl of matcha with wagashi (traditional Japanese sweets) while seated on cushions overlooking the small internal garden.   There are some  34 fully trained geisha (called geigi in Kanazawa), and visitors can book to participate in an evening of dinner, games, conversation and a music and dance performance.  

Another traditional geisha area is the small Nishi Chaya district, a street filled with dark wooden latticed, traditional buildings transformed into boutiques, restaurants and cafes. Geisha still work here, and walking along one quiet afternoon, I heard the sound of a shamisen drifting out of one of the houses. Occupying the top floor of one of these traditional buildings is the Salon de Thé, where we had a terrific afternoon tea experience, sampling the confectionery from the Amanatto Kawamura sweet shop below. Here, we found a fascinating collection of beans that have been candied. It is the first time I have eaten candied chickpeas, butter beans, soy, and red beans. We also enjoyed a superb parfait made with local ingredients including matcha ice cream, a range of the beans, rice flour wafers and sable, and white runner bean cream scented with orange.  

Close to the commercial centre of Kanazawa, we found the Nagamachi samurai district where, during the Edo Period, the samurai who served the feudal lord were housed. The samurai were private armies of the feudal lords (daimyo) and became a social class of their own. Although the Disneyfied depiction of the samurai is of warmongers, they had a strict social and military set of ethics, were literate and spawned many writers, and they enjoyed and cultivated the arts, including the tea ceremony. In that period, Kanazawa Castle was the centre of the city, with the merchants and the samurai living around the castle precincts. This district now gives visitors insight into how the samurai lived, with narrow cobbled stone lanes lined with high yellow mud walls behind which there are some museums set in traditional samurai homes. At the Nomura Family Samurai House, we were able to see up close samurai suits of armour, ink paintings and beautiful screens, household artefacts and a tea room which overlooks the stunning courtyard garden with streams, traditional stone lanterns, a pond and koi fish.

FACT BOX

In Kanazawa House

We were hosted by In Kanazawa House, an organisation/ cultural hub that specialises in authentic cultural and culinary experiences for international travellers.  The cultural hub is based in a beautifully restored machiya in a residential neighbourhood of Kanazawa. Here, they curate deep, local access to cultural activities in Kanazawa encompassing a range of tours, hands-on experiences and workshops. These include culinary tours – visiting the Omicho market and cooking classes, cultural tours including local crafts, geisha evenings, tea ceremony, music workshops, and visits to artisan workshops. You can learn samurai martial arts, participate in cycling tours, as well as guided tours of the city.  On a tour of the carefully restored In Kanazawa House machiya, we found an artist in residence, exhibition spaces and a large demonstration kitchen where a British couple were sitting at a very long wooden table, having a private cookery lesson with a Japanese cook who was about to serve their lunch.

The President, Shigehiko Yamada, spoke passionately to us about his involvement with efforts to preserve the old traditional houses (machiya), many of which have fallen into disrepair and are disappearing. Kanazawa now has one of the largest collections of preserved machiya in Japan. Once restored, they are either turned into accommodation, galleries, cafes and cultural centres. We spent a night at SAIK, which has four private rooms and a shared kitchenette and lounge area. Our room had four bunk beds, along with a contemporary bathroom, a private lounge and a small terrace. It was fitted out in traditional Japanese style and would be a fun experience for families as well.  It was a great alternative to staying in a hotel as it gave us a real sense of Japanese traditional culture and how merchants and artisans lived in an earlier period of the city’s history.  SAIK is located a short walk from the Nishi Chaya geisha district and a 15-minute walk into the centre of town.

Top Tip: Kanazawa has a loop bus that stops at most of the must-see sights and museums before returning to the station. It is an affordable and very convenient way to get around Kanazawa, especially for those in town for a day trip. There is so much to do, see and eat in this city that I would recommend at least a couple of days to allow time for sightseeing as well as engaging in some of the hands-on experiences that make a visit to Kanazawa extra special.