What Should You Eat and Buy in Aizuwakamatsu? Local Dishes, Akabeko, Lacquerware and Onsen

Published 2026-10-04 · Sources checked 2026-10-04 · Treasure Hunting Co., Ltd.

This guide is for visitors who want to know what Aizuwakamatsu is known for on the table, in craft shops and in its hot spring villages. It follows the English pages of the city's tourism site "Samurai City Aizuwakamatsu" and the Tohoku tourism site, which we read on 2026-10-04. We name dishes and crafts, not individual restaurants, because the site's shop details change.

Local dishes

The food page says the area's climate and water produce dishes that visitors cannot find elsewhere. It lists these:

• Kozuyu: a soup made from dried scallop stock, seasoned with salt and soy sauce, with taro, carrots, mushrooms, ginkgo nuts and small wheat gluten balls. It is served at festivals and celebrations.
• Sauce katsudon: rice topped with shredded cabbage and a fried pork cutlet dipped in a sauce. The sauce has been popular with citizens since the Taisho period, and each restaurant has its own recipe.
• Horse meat: the page says it developed because of the many packhorses kept when Aizu was a post station. The local way is to eat raw horse meat with kara-miso, a hot bean paste. A shop entry on the same page also lists horse hotpot.
• Soba: the page credits the hilly terrain, hot summers followed by cold winters and clean water, and says soba has long been served at weddings and happy occasions. It mentions handmade juwari soba.
• Wappa-meshi: seasonal toppings on rice in a round container of thin curved wood, a lunchbox used by woodsmen. One restaurant is named as the pioneer.
• Ramen: thick, flat noodles, with a pork base in most shops and variations with soy sauce or miso.
• Curry yakisoba: a recent local favourite, first served at a cafeteria and now in many restaurants.
• Miso dengaku: today the name means fried tofu covered in miso, though dengaku was originally a ceremonial dance for rice planting.

The Ouchi-juku page on the Tohoku site adds negi soba, buckwheat noodles eaten with a leek as the chopsticks, as well as tochimochi, a rice cake made from horse chestnut and glutinous rice, and shingoro, a dumpling-like food flavoured with perilla miso.

Akabeko, the red cow

Akabeko are small papier-mache cows with a head that bobs, made as playthings and good-luck charms for more than 400 years, and now a symbol of Aizu-Wakamatsu. The page tells one origin story from Enzoji Temple, around 807, and says that when Gamo Ujisato became lord in 1590 he invited artisans to build a toy-making industry. They are still handmade, and several workshops let visitors paint their own, which the page says is suitable for all ages. The Aizu Bukeyashiki lists akabeko painting among its hands-on activities.

Lacquerware

The site says Aizu has been a leading producer of wooden lacquerware for more than 400 years. Ashina Morinobu promoted the cultivation of lacquer trees and Gamo Ujisato brought in skilled woodworkers. It was designated a traditional craft of Japan in 1975. Typical patterns are pine, plum and bamboo, and visitors can try making lacquerware in workshops around the city.

Hot springs close to the city

Higashiyama Onsen is described as one of the region's best onsen villages, said to have been founded more than 1,300 years ago by the priest Gyoki. Its inns and restaurants line the Yukawa River valley, and many accept day visitors. Ashinomaki Onsen, in the Okawa River valley, dates from about 1,200 years ago and was once nicknamed "the phantom village" because of its secluded location. Walking forest trails and renting a bicycle are popular there.

The pages give the same etiquette notes for both. Wash and rinse your whole body before entering the bath, do not wear clothing or a swimsuit in it, and check ahead if you have tattoos, because some baths do not accept them. Small tattoos may be covered with a bandage in some places, and a private bath may be possible.

What we could not verify, and therefore left out

• Opening hours and prices of any restaurant or workshop, which the site marks "as of" past dates.
• Which inns currently take day visitors.
• Whether each workshop needs a reservation.

Related guides

• How do you get to Aizuwakamatsu and get around by loop bus?
• What is Aizuwakamatsu? The samurai city, Tsuruga Castle and the Boshin War

Sources

All URLs retrieved 2026-10-04.

1. Food (Samurai City Aizuwakamatsu) — (list of dishes)
2. Aizu Kozuyu (Samurai City Aizuwakamatsu) — (kozuyu)
3. Aizu Sauce Katsu-don (Samurai City Aizuwakamatsu) — (sauce katsudon)
4. Aizu Horsemeat Cuisine (Samurai City Aizuwakamatsu) — (horse meat)
5. Soba Noodles (Samurai City Aizuwakamatsu) — (soba)
6. Wappa Meshi (Samurai City Aizuwakamatsu) — (wappa-meshi)
7. Aizu Ramen (Samurai City Aizuwakamatsu) — (ramen)
8. Curry Yaki-soba (Samurai City Aizuwakamatsu) — (curry yakisoba)
9. Akabeko Painting (Samurai City Aizuwakamatsu) — (akabeko)
10. Aizu Lacquerware (Samurai City Aizuwakamatsu) — (lacquerware)
11. Higashiyama Onsen (Samurai City Aizuwakamatsu) — (onsen)
12. Ashinomaki Onsen (Samurai City Aizuwakamatsu) — (onsen)
13. Ouchi-juku (Travel to Tohoku) — (negi soba)