Food festivals in Hiroshima worth planning a trip around, by month.
Food festivals in Hiroshima worth planning a trip around, by month.
The prefecture's largest autumn food event fills Hiroshima Castle and the surrounding moats with producer stalls, oyster counters and sake bars over one October weekend.
Focus: Hiroshima prefecture produce, oysters, okonomiyaki and sake
Tip: Entry is free and the stalls run 10:00 to 17:00, but the castle approaches are shoulder to shoulder by late morning.
Saijo's sake festival takes over the brewery district in Higashihiroshima each October, pouring several hundred labels from across Japan among the brick chimneys.
Focus: Japanese sake from Saijo and across the country
Tip: The tasting hall is ticketed while the street stalls are free, and Saijo is about forty minutes by train from Hiroshima Station.
Hiroshima's biggest festival takes over Peace Boulevard for three Golden Week days with parades, stages and about 130 food and drink booths from Hiroshima and overseas lining the side lanes.
Focus: Food booths from Hiroshima and abroad
Tip: The booths run roughly 11:00 to 18:30 each day, and Peace Memorial Park adds candle illuminations on the evenings of 3 and 4 May.
Toukasan opens yukata season each June, when the Inari rites at Enryuji Temple spill onto Chuo-dori and hundreds of yatai stalls feed crowds of around 450,000 over three nights.
Focus: Festival yatai street food
Tip: Go after dark on the Friday or Saturday, wear a yukata if you have one, and graze the stalls along Chuo-dori rather than sitting down anywhere.
Hiroshima's merchants' festival, held since the early 1600s, packs the streets around Ebisu Shrine each 18 to 20 November, with food and drink stalls along Chuo-dori while shopkeepers buy komazarae rakes for luck.
Focus: Festival yatai street food
Tip: The dates never move, whatever the weekday; the stalls around the shrine and Hondori arcades are busiest after office hours.