Nishiki Market Route

What Nishiki Market is

Nishiki Market is a narrow shopping street running about four hundred metres east to west, one block north of Shijo Street in central Kyoto. Open as a market for some four hundred years, it is still lined with stalls of fresh fish, Kyoto vegetables, pickles, dried goods, yuba and fresh wheat gluten — which is why it is called "Kyoto's kitchen." The lane is tight, under a run of colourful shop curtains and an arcade roof. Lately food-walk stalls have multiplied, and the face of local cooks buying supplies and the face of visiting crowds share the same single street.

A plate from Kyoto's kitchen

The charm of Nishiki is that you can nibble, on the spot, the very ingredients that hold up Kyoto cuisine. Miki Keiran's dashimaki is a distinctly Kyoto roll, grilled full of stock. Konnamonja's soy-milk doughnuts remind you that Kyoto is a land blessed with fine soybeans and water, where a culture of yuba and tofu took root. And Kai's tako-tamago, an octopus head stuffed with a quail egg, is a new speciality born as the market turned to tourism. Old-house craft and new street snacking overlap on a single street.

How to walk this route

Start at the subway Shijo station or Hankyu Karasuma. Enter the market from the Takakura Street side, by Daimaru, and walk straight east. Begin with a slice of Miki Keiran's dashimaki, then Konnamonja's soy-milk doughnuts, and toward the east of the market a skewer of Kai's tako-tamago. The lane is narrow, with porters and bicycles passing, so eat what you buy at the shopfront and don't stop in the middle — that is the etiquette. Walk to Nishiki Tenmangu at the far end, and reckon about an hour and a half in all.