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We’re going to be honest, being gluten-free in Japan is challenging. Gluten intolerances are rare among Japanese people, soy sauce is used in almost everything, and there’s a fair bit of misunderstanding around what a gluten-free diet means in practice.
If you’re coeliac and can’t risk any cross contamination at all, visiting Japan is going to be harder work – and you’ll need to gather as much information as possible to work out whether it’s the right destination for you (especially if food is important to you when you travel).
We also know (and celebrate) that some gluten-free travellers are determined to visit Japan despite the adjustments needed. We’ve put together a gluten-free guide to Japan, based on our knowledge of living and working there, to help arm you with as much knowledge as possible for a successful trip.
Throughout, you’ll also find some thoughts from a recent gluten-free customer, Elizabeth, who told us: “I knew I didn’t want my intolerance to stop us from enjoying Japan, and while we did have some difficulties finding food sometimes, overall, we had a beautiful trip.”
Top tips for eating gluten-free in Japan
Research before you go
As with most countries, bigger cities are better set up to handle dietary requirements. You won’t find gluten-free meals at every restaurant you go to, but places like Tokyo and Osaka will have more options. If you’re venturing more off-beat, you’ll need to be a bit more prepared.
Restaurant locator apps, like “Find Me Gluten Free”, and Facebook Groups such as “Gluten-Free in Japan” have up-to-date information including restaurant options, reviews and recommendations. These can be a great source of inspiration to get you started and to familiarise yourself with what foods are likely to be safe.
We recommend pinning locations on Google Maps, either before your trip, or when you’ve got a bit of down time in Japan – saving the scroll when all you want to do is eat.
If you’re travelling with us, our customer experience team are available 24/7 to help you book restaurants. They can call ahead, check the understanding of gluten-free diets, and make sure they’re open when you want to go (Google is great, but not 100% accurate).
Write down your requirements in Japanese
Unless you’re fluent in Japanese, you might not feel confident expressing what you need verbally in Japan – but writing your requirements down makes things simpler. Whether on paper or in your phone, having your dietary requirements written down somewhere handy means you’ll have them to refer to whenever you need.
You can use Google translate to source the correct phrasing or, if you’re travelling with us, just let us know early on in our conversations. We’ll get everything you need onto a handy allergy vocab sheet, included as part of your Info-Pack. Some coeliac charities, like Coeliac UK, have country specific guides to download, too.
Bring snacks – lots of snacks
Fresh off a long-haul flight, feeling jet-lagged and bewildered, you’re unlikely to want to tackle the bright colours of a konbini convenience store or try to decipher kanji to hunt down something gluten-free (save that for later in your trip when it’s likely to be more fun).
Bring some convenient snacks that will get you through any hungry gaps in your trip. Elizabeth, our recent gluten-free customer, recommends adding things like peanut butter, rice cakes, rice noodles, and tinned tina to your snack stash – because you can use them to make quick meals when staying in hotel rooms with a kettle, or to build snacks like peanut butter rice cakes to take on longer journeys.
Bring your own GF soy sauce, tamari or mayo
Because gluten-free recipes and dishes aren’t common-place in Japan, restaurant staff may err on the side of caution. Soy sauce is used in a lot of Japanese cooking, and if that’s taken out, your food may be seasoned only with salt and pepper to be on the safe side.
But, there’s a simple solution to avoiding bland food: pack some extra condiments in your suitcase – including some handy sachets or travel sized bottles for on-the-go ease. While Japanese tamari, a gluten-free soy sauce, is available in supermarkets, it’s unlikely to be provided on tables in restaurants or at street food stalls, so bringing your own is a good option.
If you’re on a Small Group Tour, or travelling independently with a guide for the day, our Insiders will be able to explain why you have these to the restaurant staff (to avoid unwanted confusion). We can also write this on a vocab sheet for you.
Fun fact: Our customer experience team once couriered a bottle of gluten-free soy sauce across the country for a customer after she’d left it on a train… Noone can tell us food isn’t important!
Google Translate (or similar translator app) will be your saviour
Travelling to Japan today is much easier now than it was pre-smart phones. Using a translation app like Google Translate, you can type, speak or take a photo of any text you want to translate or be translated between Japanese and English.
Speaking directly into the app is incredibly useful during a live conversation in a restaurant, at a street food stall or in a 7-Eleven supermarket. And in a country that doesn’t use a Latin alphabet (like Japan or Korea), camera functionality is invaluable.
Taking pictures of ingredients on packets or menus, with no need to type out words you’re unfamiliar or try to access a different keyboard on your phone, will speed up choosing food and reassure you what you’re eating is safe. On her trip, Elizabeth found that the only spanner in the works with this approach was vending machines, where you won’t be able to check ingredients before you buy.
Your translation app of choice could be the single most helpful thing you bring with you. Just remember to have a portable source of Wi-Fi too – which we can provide.
Head to a konbini (convenience store)
Convenience stores will be your go-to for stocking up on snacks ahead of longer journeys or supplementing meals.
There are three main convenience store brands in Japan: 7-Eleven, FamilyMart and Lawson. Remember these – they’ll be the go-to shops you’ll find even in the most remote locations (there’s even a FamilyMart on the main road of the Buddhist temple settlement, Koya-san). Again, you can use Google Translate to scan packets (try the onigri balls – filled with vegetables, meat or fish, delicious) and make sure the food inside is gluten-free.
Seijo Ishii is another, less common supermarket chain specialising in quality, international food – including gluten-free products. While some of what you find here won’t be Japanese, pasta and crisps can get you out of a hungry gap until you find your next local gluten-free friendly stop.
If you’re staying somewhere with kitchen facilities, like an apartment style machiya, don’t skip the freezer section. These can offer plenty of alternatives or naturally gluten-free options for snacks, mains and desserts
Check, and check again
Armed with your translation app or your allergy vocab sheet, it won’t take long to work out what you can eat, but try not to make assumptions, and if in doubt, just check again.
Japanese dishes can contain a lot of hidden gluten. Soy sauce is a very common ingredient used in all kinds of dishes, and even sushi can contain gluten sometimes. Most noodles include gluten, but soba noodles tend to use buckwheat, which is gluten-free.
Remember, not all allergens that are included on packaging at home will be obvious on Japanese products. While wheat is listed, rye, barley and oats aren’t on the government’s mandatory food label allergens list. Gluten-free menus aren’t common in Japan, so it’s best to ask the servers.
And recipes will differ from place to place. For example, if you’ve checked an onigri ball in Lawson, make sure to check your next one in 7-Eleven too.
If you’re ever unsure, grab your allergy vocab sheet or bring up Google Translate, and speak to someone in the shop, restaurant or where you’re staying. Something you’ll learn very quickly is that Japanese people are usually very keen to help out where they can – so don’t be afraid to ask. Elizabeth was very kindly helped by a local in a 7-Eleven to find a loaf of gluten-free rice bread – which she used to bring to breakfast the next day for egg on toast.
Consider your breakfast the night before
Speaking of breakfast, the options available to you will vary depending on where you stay.
In bigger, western-style hotels, it’s more likely that there will be a choice or a buffet. Often, dishes will be clearly labelled, but, depending on where you stay, that can’t be guaranteed, so be cautious. Staying in a traditional ryokan may not be the best option for you to keep a gluten-free diet. Meals are often served kaiseki style – multi-course, intricately prepared meals using seasonal produce. These take hours of preparation, so staff will struggle to accommodate dietary requirements. Speak to us and we can see whether certain ryokan can serve you a similar, but gluten-free meal, instead.
Wherever you’re staying, for reassurance you’ll have something to eat first thing, you could pop out the night before to a konbini – making sure you check out whether your room has a fridge or not.
If you’d rather have your own food prep space for a day or two, stay in an apartment-style machiya – great for cooking up some breakfast bits before heading out for a day’s exploration. Elizabeth’s travel consultant, Josey, helped make things easier by booking hotels strategically close to supermarkets: “She was fantastic. She booked hotels that were really close to supermarkets, and that had microwaves we could use.
“When I travel, I’m always so busy in the day, I really don’t want to venture far for dinner or even out from where I’m staying at all, so having these facilities at our fingertips was our compromise.”
If in doubt, try a chain restaurant
While we’d always recommend trying local places, sometimes you want something quick, or that isn’t traditional Japanese, and chain restaurants are more likely to have gluten or allergen-free meals.
Some of our team favourites are Taco Fanático (a Mexican restaurant), Coco Ichibanya (which is Japanese, specialising in curry), Outback Steakhouse (an international, American steakhouse chain) or Mos Burger (burgers cooked to order), as a starting point.
Think before you forward your luggage
Lots of people, including our customers, take advantage of the fantastic luggage forwarding system in Japan. This is particularly useful if you’re jumping on and off Shinkansen bullet trains, or smaller local buses, where lugging larger bags is less convenient.
But, if you’ve got a significant amount of food in your luggage, you won’t want to be without it for too long. Luggage forwarding is always optional – so consider whether you’d rather pack a separate bag of food to keep with you, or avoid forwarding altogether and keep your stash of safe food with you at all times.
Ready to grab your gluten-free soy sauce?
We hope you found the above gluten-free guide to Japan useful. As a handy summary to refer to, here’s our quick prep list:
- Research restaurants before you go – and pin them on Google Maps
- Write down your requirements in Japanese
- Pack convenient snacks
- Pack gluten-free soy sauce, tamari or mayonnaise
- Download a translation app
- Make the most of konbini convenience stores
- Don’t be afraid to double-check
- Think about breakfast the night before
- Consider chain restaurants, if you’re in a hurry
- Think twice before you forward your luggage
Extra gluten-free guide to Japan resources
If you’re interested in finding out more, you might find the below resources useful:
The Ultimate Gluten Free Survival Guide For Japan — Fukuoka Eats
Gluten-Free Kyoto – Inside Kyoto
If you’d like to start planning a trip to Japan, our team are always on hand to answer any questions you might have about travelling while gluten-free or coeliac.