Nagoya · MeiekiNo.1011★★★Open in map →

Tebasaki

— Nagoya's twice-fried chicken wings

foodThe classic — done right

Deep-fried chicken wings, cooked twice, brushed with a sweet-salty glaze and finished with pepper and sesame. The part was once kept for stock; the market five minutes east of Nagoya Station is where the city's raw materials still arrive before dawn.

FromNagoya Station (JR, Meitetsu, Kintetsu, subway)
~5 min on footOn foot from Nagoya Station
Tebasaki

Directions ↗

Where it is

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What to look for

Yanagibashi Central Market円周率３パーセント / CC BY-SA 4.0

The market lanesnarrow streets of fish stalls, stacked foam boxes and hand carts working at first light
Marunaka Food Centerthe market's main hall, gathering fish, meat, produce and dry goods under one roof
Nagoya Sogo Ichiba buildinga second market building on the same block, holding another set of wholesalers
The market eateriessmall counters serving set meals, rice bowls and soba from early morning

How to actually get there

Arrive at Nagoya Station and leave on the east side, following the Unimall underground street to exit 11.
Walk east about five minutes to the market blocks in Meieki 4-chome.
Work through the lanes, then the market halls, and finish at one of the morning eateries.

On foot from Nagoya Station, about five minutes: Leave Nagoya Station on the east side and walk east. The city, the prefecture and the market operator all give five minutes on foot, and the operator's own directions send you out of Unimall exit 11 and then south. Once you are off the train there is no transfer and no further fare.
Back to Nagoya Station: The same five minutes in reverse. Alternatively walk northeast to Kokusai Center Station on the Sakura-dori Line and ride one stop. If you come at the market's earliest hour, check when the first subway runs — the walk is the option that does not depend on a timetable.

Directions from my location (Google Maps) ↗

About the place

Tebasaki is the wing tip, the thin outer end of a chicken wing. Nagoya's tourism bureau notes that it carries gelatin and fat but little meat, and that it was once used mainly as feed. Deep-fried, brushed with a sweet-salty glaze and dusted with pepper and sesame, it became one of the dishes the city is known for. Yanagibashi Central Market sits a short walk east of Nagoya Station, under the towers that stand over the platforms. It is privately run rather than municipal, and the prefecture's tourism site calls it the market that has supplied the kitchens of this region.

How to enjoy it

The market's own window runs from early morning to around ten, the hours the operator and both tourism sites give, with each shop setting its own times inside it. That makes the honest plan a split day: walk the lanes while the carts are still moving, then come back to this side of the station in the evening, when tebasaki turns up on the menus.

Background & history

The market goes back more than a century. The company that runs its main hall, Marunaka Food Center, dates that building's opening to 1969, and the prefecture's tourism site describes the market itself as a hundred-year institution. The dish is far younger. Both the prefecture's official food page and Japanese-language reference sources place the first glazed, deep-fried wing tips in Nagoya in the early 1960s, when a restaurant took a part that had until then gone only into stock pots and made it the centre of a plate.

Before you go

Cash: This is a wholesale market that also sells to the public, as the city's tourism page notes. Stalls and counters set their own payment methods, so bring cash.
Good to know: Trading hours are short and finish in the late morning, and each shop keeps its own days off, so a late arrival can find shutters already down. The lanes are open to the weather; the market halls are not.
Another way: On the Sakura-dori subway line, get off at Kokusai Center Station and walk about three minutes southwest — the approach the market operator and both tourism sites list.
After you get off: From Nagoya Station, head out on the east side toward Unimall exit 11, then turn south. The market blocks begin where the office towers give way to low buildings and parked handcarts.