Yakizakana Grilled Fish Breakfast appears as a signature dish in 1 Japan cities. See each city's local variant and where to eat it.
Yakizakana (grilled fish breakfast) · Tokyo
Yakizakana is salt-grilled fish over charcoal, served as the protein anchor of a Japanese breakfast set with rice, miso soup and pickles. Mackerel, salmon or saury, skin crisp, flesh just-set.
Salt-grilled fish has been Japan's breakfast staple since the Edo era, when Tokyo's wholesale fish trade at Nihonbashi (1603) and later Tsukiji (1935) put fresh catch on the city's counters before dawn. The teishoku (set meal) form was codified by the 1930s, and Tsukiji's outer-market eateries opened breakfast counters serving auction workers from 5am. After Tsukiji's wholesale operations moved to Toyosu in 2018, the outer market kept the grilled-fish-breakfast tradition alive for tourists and locals; Toyosu's market-side restaurants run the same form.
Where to eat in Tokyo:
- Tsukiji Outer Market standing counters
- Tsukiji Outer Market breakfast stalls
- Toyosu Fish Market