18 Best Restaurants in Hokkaido, Japan

Claws emerging from a bed of fresh-cut crab and darkly gleaming red salmon eggs piled high on a bowl of rice are just two of the famous raw-fish options at this 50-year-old family restaurant in the middle of the noisy fish market. They also have lighter options like fresh shellfish and simple grilled fish, rice, and miso lunch sets. The menus have plenty of pictures and a bit of English to make ordering easier. The restaurant also houses a fishmonger known as Takeda Sengyoten.  

A European-style restaurant set in a tranquil garden, with very friendly staff, Boyotei (which literally means "View of Mt. Yotei") charms with its stone floor, low beams, long-legged tables, and family photos dating back for decades. There are English menus available.

Below the red sign depicting a roly-poly mustachioed doll, this establishment founded in 1954 serves the city's freshest barbecued lamb jingisukan. The slices of lamb are served steaming atop heaps of vegetables. At the end of the meal you're given hot tea to mix with what's left of your dipping sauce—mixed together, they're oddly delicious. Be sure to wear your least-favorite clothes and don the paper bib that's provided, then feast away until you become roly-poly yourself.

On a narrow street near the Mitsukoshi department store, Ebi-Ten Bun-Ten is as friendly a tempura place as you're likely to find in Hokkaido. The sliding doors behind a blue banner reveal a quiet, homey restaurant, managed for two generations by the friendly Yamada family. Seating is available at the counter, at tables, and in tatami rooms with cushions. A rudimentary English menu is available.

Sizzling yakitori (meat on wood skewers) and other local favorites like grilled salmon and herring accompany imports like spareribs and tacos at this place in Hirafu Village. The folks at the nearby tables could become tomorrow's skiing or whitewater rafting buddies, and your hotel's staffers probably enjoy their evenings off here. It's open for dinner, but if you're in the area around lunchtime consider the sister restaurant Bang 2 (Deux) just next door. English translations are on the menu.

This spacious, laid-back restaurant—all soaring beams and wide windows overlooking Mt. Yotei—on the second floor of Niseko Adventure Center is busy all day with guides and their nervous or elated customers. The platters here overflow with nourishing meals for adventurers, including an all-Hokkaido burger with only local ingredients. Jo-Jo's sells drinks from 9:30, but doesn't start serving food until 11.

There are two branches of Kani Honke, one in Susukino, and the other in front of Sapporo Station. In business for more than 50 years, these crab-eating havens serves raw, steamed, boiled, and baked crustaceans—the waitress will tell you whether the ke-gani (hairy crab), taraba-gani (king crab), or zuwai-kani (snow crab) is in season. Wood beams, tatami mats, and traditional decorations provide an authentic setting for the feast. Look for the building with crabs all over it and a couple of giant white signs on the roof. There's also an English menu.

This ordinary-looking 10-stools-at-the-plastic-counter joint in Susukino has had lines of faithful slurpers outside since the year 2000 (a lifetime for a ramen shop) and is still chopping, boiling, and serving its succinct seven-item ramen menu. Order from the vending machine at the door then wait on the bench or stand around the corner; once seated wait for the cook to hand down a steaming bowl topped generously with vegetables from the raised and hidden kitchen.

If you want to keep your clothes clean, don't avoid slurping, just accept the paper bib they offer.

This bustling village eatery serves steaming crab curry, golden sea urchin on rice, and anything else they can make out of the morning's catch. They often give customers free crab legs to suck on while they wait. It's near the harbor down from the Shiretoko Grand Hotel and across the street from the 7-Eleven; picture menus are available for easy ordering.

This seaside hall serves seafood as well as a huge variety of other foods from pastas to salads that can keep just about anyone satisfied. The soaring rafters are beautiful and the atmosphere is lively. Its spaciousness and conviviality are typical of Hokkaido and, although it's in a tourist complex, even locals like the wide range of seasonal specials from a menu that changes monthly.

Nakano-san presides over the catch of the day in a small restaurant, run since the 1970s by the same family. Take a seat at the wooden counter, over which Nakano-san offers you whatever seafood is in season. Open from midday to midnight.

Located in one of the warehouses beside the Otaru Canal, Otaru Beer a great place to try the local Weiss, Pilsner, and Dunkel. The food is also international with a menu that includes such wildly differing foods as pizza, paella, german sausage, and roast pork. The shiny copper brew kettles, brick walls, and wooden beams help create a great atmosphere. Otaru Beer has been a favorite amongst locals and visitors for nearly three decades. 

Standing apart from all the sushi joints in Otaru is this lamb barbecue heaven at the easy-to-find branch of a famous jingisukan restaurant. Purchase a plate of tender, succulent lamb, which you cook tyourself on a dome-shaped griddle with side orders of alfalfa sprouts (moyashi) and leeks (negi). If you're still hungry, pick up a crepe or a treat on your way out from one of the shops in the cute collection of buildings. Reservations are required on weekends.

In the middle of Otaru's famous strip of sushi restaurants, Masazushi serves up the morning's catch of herring, tuna, abalone, salmon, and more perched on quality vinegared rice. The staff will check your wasabi horseradish tolerance levels when taking your order. A good, quick lunch is the basic 10-piece akane set. The restaurant is quiet and removed from the day-tripper crowds, and in the evening it's where local business leaders hold court in private rooms, but there are English menus.

In a city with no shortage of soup-curry restaurants, the long lines outside this place just south of Odori Park tell you how much the locals rate Garaku. There are eight basic soup curries on the menu to which you can add more toppings and tweak spice levels. The way to eat them is the same: the soup curry comes in a bowl with rice on the side that many people mix in as they go.

Hokkaido sushi is famed throughout Japan, and this is probably the best of the best. It's where locals take guests when they want to impress them with a pure sushi experience. The main branch in Maruyama is the best of the four scattered around the city, while the one next to JR Sapporo Station (Daimaru 8F, Kita 5 Nishi 5) is cheaper and more welcoming to families (and where you won't need reservations).

Although squid is not the only thing on the menu, it is fresh—your squid is pulled flapping from the tank and might return minutes later sliced, with squid-ink black rice, delicious slivers of still-twitching flesh, soup, and pickles. If squid isn't your thing, don't fret, the restaurant has plenty of other seafood, and a picture menu for easy selection. Look for a sign with red letters on a yellow background.

A casual downtown coffee shop with an English menu, this hangout is popular with students and expats. Only one busy cook works in the kitchen, so don't expect a speedy lunch, but come in when you're peckish and you'll eventually leave feeling full. Or just hang out and have a cup of coffee or tea.