Kuromon Market Route

What Kuromon Market is

Kuromon Market is a roughly 580-metre market running through Nippombashi in Osaka's Minami. In the late Edo period it came to be called "Kuromon" — black gate — after the dark temple gate of nearby Enmyoji, and it grew around its fishmongers. Along both sides of a covered arcade, shops of fresh fish, meat, produce and dried goods stand packed together, and it has long been called "Osaka's kitchen." Once a market where professional cooks came to buy, it now has more stalls grilling for visitors to eat on the spot, and is known as a food-walk street too. It is liveliest from morning to early afternoon, and shops begin closing by evening.

The market's seafood and wagyu

Kuromon's lead is seafood first. Fishmongers set charcoal grills out front and cook scallops in the shell, large prawns and oysters on the spot. A seafood bowl of just-sliced tuna and urchin on vinegared rice is a market luxury too. Not fish alone: Osaka is a beef-eating city, and among the stalls are shops skewering and searing Kobe and black-wagyu beef, and others frying croquettes and tempura. Pufferfish, eel, tamagoyaki, soy-milk doughnuts — prices move with the day's catch, and a point of the finger has it cleaned on the spot. Because it is a market, you taste just-cut and just-grilled, one plate at a time; that is the joy of it.

How to walk this route

Start at Nippombashi station. Up out of exit 10 and you are at the market's north gate. The arcade is a single line, so walk straight north to south, grazing as you go. Begin with Takagi's grilled shellfish — scallops and large prawns over charcoal, eaten standing beside the shop. Halfway down, a Kobe-beef skewer at Niku-wa-Kobeya. Once the sweet fat has changed your palate, a seafood bowl at Kuromon Sanpei — here you sit and take the just-cut fish slowly, the closing plate. About ninety minutes on foot; keep each portion small and alternate grilled and bowl, seafood and wagyu, and it carries you to the end.