Kakibune Kanawa moors on the Motoyasu river in Hiroshima and serves oysters from the family's own rafts, raw downstairs and in courses above.
Signature: Oyster course, Fried oysters, Grilled oysters
Order: The oyster course, built around raft-grown Seto Inland Sea oysters
Tip: The kaki-zukushi course on the Seto boat runs 9,000 yen and is worth booking ahead; raw, fried and grilled plates are ordered a la carte at both services.
Kaki Goya Fukuromachi Umihei Shoten keeps Hiroshima's fisherman-hut oyster format running indoors all year, one kilo of shells steamed in a can.
Signature: Can-steamed oysters, Fried oysters, Oyster hot pot
Order: The kilo of oysters steam-grilled in a can over the burner
Tip: Unlike the seasonal huts on the waterfront this branch runs year round, but the oysters are still plumpest between October and March.
Sensui gathers kaiseki, teppanyaki and a sushi counter on one floor of the Hilton in Hiroshima, with private rooms for the seasonal courses.
Signature: Kaiseki course, Teppanyaki, Sushi counter
Order: The seasonal kaiseki course, from 10,000 yen at dinner
Tip: Lunch runs from 3,800 yen with courses from 6,500 yen, the cheapest way to see the kitchen, but private rooms carry their own minimum spend.
MoreThan Hiroshima runs from breakfast to late dinner on the ground floor of The Knot, an Italian kitchen with an all-day counter in Otemachi.
Signature: Italian plates, All-day breakfast
Order: Morning plates before 10:00 or the evening Italian menu after 17:00
Tip: The kitchen splits into four services a day, so check which one you are walking into before you sit down at the counter.
Sky Dining RIHGA TOP looks over Hiroshima from the 33rd floor of the Rihga Royal, running breakfast, lunch, an afternoon cafe and dinner from one room.
Signature: A la carte dinner plates, Cafe service
Order: Whatever is on the a la carte list, taken at a window table after sunset
Tip: The cafe service from 10:00 to 17:30 is the cheapest way to get a window seat at this height in the city.
JoGeSaYu is the fully plant-based kitchen near Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, rebuilding ramen, curry and katsudon without animal products.
Signature: Vegan ramen, Vegan curry, Vegan katsudon
Order: The vegan katsudon, rebuilt without egg or animal stock
Tip: The room opens at 07:30 for a morning service, which is unusual for a plant-based kitchen in western Japan.
The Orizuru Tower branch of Mitchan Sohonten faces the A-Bomb Dome in Hiroshima and adds oysters, conger eel and local beef steak to the teppan menu.
Signature: Oyster okonomiyaki, Hiroshima beef steak, Koune
Order: Okonomiyaki with Hiroshima oysters, noodles, pork and egg
Tip: Sitting beside the Orizuru Tower entrance, this branch is the easiest Mitchan to reach straight from Peace Memorial Park.
Sensui is the Hilton Hiroshima's Japanese floor, splitting kaiseki, teppanyaki and sushi across three counters, with private tatami rooms behind them.
Order: The seasonal kaiseki course with a Hiroshima sake flight
Tip: Private rooms carry a minimum spend that starts at 6,500 yen for a weekday lunch and climbs for dinner and at weekends.
Kakibune Kanawa has farmed its own oysters since 1867 and serves them from a boat moored on the Motoyasu river in central Hiroshima, raw and in courses.
Order: The kaki-zukushi oyster course, 9,000 yen on the Seto deck
Tip: Oysters come from the company's rafts off Okurokami island, which is why the raw plates run through the colder months.
Sky Dining RIHGA TOP is the 100-seat all-day room on the 33rd floor of the Rihga Royal in Hiroshima, with a bar counter and a night view over the castle.
Order: A window table at dinner, ordered a la carte rather than from a set plan
Tip: The hotel keeps its French restaurant, Chambord, on the same 33rd floor, so check which of the two your reservation actually names.
Nagataya griddles Hiroshima okonomiyaki two blocks from the A-Bomb Dome, and is one of the few counters in the city with plant-based versions.
Signature: Hiroshima okonomiyaki, Vegan okonomiyaki
Order: The standard soba okonomiyaki, or one of the plant-based versions
Tip: Vegan and vegetarian okonomiyaki both sit on the board, cooked in vegetable oil and listed on the English menu.
Musashibo serves Hiroshima's broth-free tantanmen a short walk from the Chudenmae tram stop, ordered by vending machine and graded by heat at no extra cost.
Signature: Shirunashi tantanmen
Order: Shirunashi tantanmen, stirred thirty times before eating
Tip: Heat runs on a four-step scale with level two as the house standard, and stepping up costs nothing extra.
Obscura Coffee Roasters pours in Fukuromachi, the sit-in Hiroshima counter of a specialty roasting brand that three Hiroshima men built up in Tokyo.
Signature drink: Single-origin pour-over
Tip: Takeaway drip is the cheap way in and the counter discounts a refill against your receipt, which makes this the easiest good coffee near Peace Memorial Park.
Kiki Coffee is a small Otemachi stand in Hiroshima pouring Issou Coffee Roastery beans alongside scones and Onomichi bean-to-bar chocolate bars.
Signature drink: Issou Coffee Roastery latte
Tip: Closed Mondays and Thursdays, and the room is two short counters and one shared table, so mid-afternoon is the realistic window.
Rue Brazil has poured the morning set in Hiroshima since the postwar years, opening at 07:00 with bread, a boiled egg, salad and a cup of coffee.
Signature drink: Morning set coffee
Tip: Morning sets run from 07:00 to 10:30 only; after that the room switches to sandwiches, curry rice and buttered toast.
Kissa Saeki is the Kamiyacho coffee house in Hiroshima that rebuilt itself around organic and additive-free cooking, with a mostly vegan menu.
Signature drink: Organic drip coffee
Tip: The vegan salad set is served only between 10:00 and 11:00, so a late breakfast is the way to catch it.
Helen works as a Komachi cafe in Hiroshima until 18:00, serving cheese terrines and espresso drinks before the room turns into a whisky bar at night.
Signature drink: Espresso tonic
Tip: Come before 18:00 for the dessert and coffee menu; after that the room switches to Japanese whisky and cocktails.
Akam Coffee Works roasts African, Central American and Asian lots in Kokutaiji-machi, a small Hiroshima counter that also sells green beans.
Signature drink: Single-origin filter
Tip: Green coffee and one-kilo wholesale bags are sold alongside the retail beans, which is unusual for a shop this size.
Hiroshima Andersen occupies a converted bank on Hondori, a bakery market and Danish-style cafe that gave the whole city its habit of eating bread.
Signature drink: Bakery counter coffee
Tip: The ground-floor bakery market runs to 19:30; the upstairs restaurant keeps different hours and posts closures online.
Hiroshima Andersen is the Hondori bakery in a converted bank building that introduced Danish baking to Japan and still anchors the covered arcade.
Tip: The bakery market, delicatessen, wine counter and chocolate counter all sit on the ground floor under one roof.
Worth the queue: Danish pastry from the ground-floor bakery market
Rue Brazil in Hiroshima bakes its own bread beside the coffee counter, and that house loaf is the base of its long-running 07:00 morning set.
Tip: House bread is sold at the front counter as well as served with the morning set, but the best loaves go early.
Worth the queue: Morning-set bread with boiled egg and salad
LUCKY BAKERY is the Gate Park shop of Miyoshi baker Mugi Mugi, milling mostly Hiroshima-grown wheat into loaves, rice-flour breads and vegan rolls.
Tip: It opened with the park in March 2023 and runs every day of the year; the salt-kombu and daikon rice-flour breads sell through by evening.
Worth the queue: Hand-kneaded campagne
WILDMAN BAGEL boils and bakes about 20 kinds of oversized bagel near Peace Memorial Park, all raised on the shop's own homemade levain starter.
Tip: It regularly sells out before the posted 18:00 close, so treat it as a morning stop and carry the bagels to the park benches over the river.
Worth the queue: Chewy plain levain bagel
Obscura Coffee Roasters roasts for Hiroshima at its Motomachi Park site and pours the results over the Fukuromachi counter, the branch with the seats in it.
Tip: Freshly roasted beans are sold alongside the drinks, and the shop shuts one Wednesday a month, so check before making a special trip.
Sources from: Ethiopia, Colombia, Guatemala
How they serve: Espresso, Pour over, Whole bean retail
Akam Coffee Works is a small Hiroshima roaster in Kokutaiji-machi selling roasted lots, green beans, drip bags and a subscription to its own coffee.
Tip: The roastery wholesales one-kilo bags to local cafes, so ask which Hiroshima rooms are pouring the current lot.
Sources from: Ethiopia, Guatemala, Indonesia
How they serve: Filter, Whole bean retail, Subscription
Helen turns from a Komachi cafe into a Hiroshima whisky bar at 18:00, stocking Yamazaki, Hakushu and Hibiki beside its espresso cocktails and charcuterie.
Signature drink: Japanese whisky flight
Food: Charcuterie and desserts
Tip: The same room serves cheese terrines and lattes until 18:00, so an early visit costs a fraction of the evening tab.
Hiroshima Neighborly Brewing brews a short walk from Peace Memorial Park and pours the results across the bar at its own charcoal-grill brewpub in Otemachi.
Tip: The brewpub sits alongside the tanks, so you can see the kit from the table while the charcoal grill runs.
KeMBY's is Hiroshima Micro Brewing Company's American-style pub in Otemachi, pouring the house range and guest taps beside burgers and smoked meats.
Tip: Doors open at 17:00 daily and the room sits a few blocks from Peace Memorial Park, so it works as the post-museum stop.
Hondori is Hiroshima's covered arcade, 577 metres of shops running east from Peace Memorial Park to the Okonomimura building at the far end of the street.
Tip: Andersen's bakery market sits mid-arcade and Okonomimura at the far end, which makes Hondori an easy eating walk.
Hiroshima Gate Park turned the old stadium site into a lawn ringed by the SHIMINT dining strip, from bakery and coffee rooms to burgers and ramen.
Tip: It sits between the Atomic Bomb Dome and the Hondori arcades, so it works as the lunch stop on a Peace Park morning; terrace seats go fast on fine weekends.
Musashibo sells Hiroshima's broth-free tantanmen from a ticket machine in Fujimi-cho, with every heat level priced exactly the same as the rest.
Try: Shirunashi tantanmen
Tip: Buy the ticket before you sit down, and stir the bowl hard before the first mouthful or the chilli oil stays at the bottom.
Nagataya keeps its lunch okonomiyaki near the A-Bomb Dome at around 1,000 yen, which is fair going for a counter standing this close to the Peace Park.
Try: Hiroshima okonomiyaki
Tip: Lunch runs cheaper than dinner here, and the kitchen closes for the day at 20:00 rather than running late.
Rue Brazil opens at 07:00 in Hiroshima with the morning set the city is credited with inventing: bread, a boiled egg, salad and a cup of coffee.
Order: Morning set A with bread, boiled egg, salad and coffee
Tip: Morning sets stop at 10:30, after which the room switches to sandwiches, curry rice and buttered toast.
Kissa Saeki serves an organic morning in central Hiroshima, and its vegan salad set appears for exactly one hour before the lunch menu replaces it.
Order: The vegan salad set between 10:00 and 11:00
Tip: Weekend service ends at 17:00 with last orders at 16:30, so the morning window is genuinely the best of it.
MoreThan opens at 07:00 on the ground floor of The Knot in Hiroshima, running breakfast, lunch, an afternoon cafe and dinner as four separate services.
Order: The morning plate before the 09:30 last entry
Tip: Last entry for the morning service is 09:30, after which the kitchen changes over to the lunch menu at 11:00.
Hiroshima Andersen runs a bakery market and cafe inside a converted Hondori bank, which makes it the easiest bread-led brunch in the whole city centre.
Order: A Danish pastry and coffee from the ground-floor market
Tip: The bakery market opens at 10:00; the upstairs restaurant keeps separate hours and posts closures on its own channels.
WILDMAN BAGEL opens at 08:00 midweek near Peace Memorial Park, boiling and baking about 20 kinds of levain bagel that stand in for a plated breakfast.
Order: The chewy plain levain bagel, raised on the shop's own homemade starter
Tip: Weekend opening moves to 09:00 and the racks can empty well before the posted 18:00 close, so come early and eat on the park benches over the river.
LUCKY BAKERY opens at 09:30 every day inside Gate Park, where Hiroshima-wheat loaves, rice-flour breads and vegan rolls assemble into an easy picnic brunch.
Order: Hand-kneaded campagne with a salt-kombu rice-flour bread
Tip: It runs every day of the year, covering Monday and Tuesday mornings when WILDMAN BAGEL is shut; the rice-flour breads sell through by evening.
Helen works a speakeasy-styled hideaway in Komachi, the Hiroshima room that pours Yamazaki and Hakushu once the cafe service ends at 18:00.
Signature drink: Japanese whisky flight
Tip: Same door, two businesses: desserts and coffee until 18:00, whisky and cocktails until 23:30.