Japanese restaurants are popping up across the city, and Chiang Mai is firmly established the best city for sashimi and sushi rolls north of Bangkok. Whether you’re looking for high end fancy slices served with all the toppings you can imagine, or cheap easy and delicious noodles and sashimi, we have you covered.
Cook with Love Grand Yakiniku & Shabu
Going on quality ingredients, this reincarnation of Chiang Mai’s original Chef Table Cook with Love, is a very strong contender indeed for being one of the premium Japanese Restaurants in Chiang Mai.
Cook With Love started off as a passion project by Chef Kai, who wowed Chiang Mai with his chef chops well over a decade ago. Today, in a spanking new purpose-built location, this grand new beginning is going all out.
With premium beef auctioned and flown in from Japan as well as live lobsters from which to choose, diners are guaranteed the best of imported produce served by an acclaimed chef.
You can hire out a private room or join the masses in the main dining area where you can grill, heat, boil and cook – with love – to your heart’s content.
The a la crate menu covers all the Japanese favourites…and then some and the buffet, if your wallet is deep enough, will allow you to eat some of the best beef in the world until you can’t continue.
Chef Kai’s team travels regularly to Japan to bid on the beef from Miyazaki, from where Japan’s best beef comes. Whether its chuck rolls, misuji, zabuton, kala sunkaku or chabuton, Chef Kai guarantees his beef to be the absolute best.
The buffet prices come at different levels and include both yakiniku and shabu shabu – with all the lovely accruements and sauces. You can choose from the following packages: 529++ / 799++ / 1,400++ / 3,200++ per person.
Birthday diners receive a 1-% discount as well as those arriving after 8pm. Children under 100cm dine for free while those between 100-130 CMU receive a 50% discount.
Located on Mahidol Road near the Airport Intersection.
Cook with Love Grand Yakiniku & Shabu
Map https://goo.gl/maps/nTTB8w6iPLWQE5yd9
Open 12pm – 11pm
Phone 097 462 5453
Line Official https://lin.ee/9gFvAq
Authentic homemade Japanese food Nostalgic not just for a taste of, but also the ambiance of Japan. Nekoemon Cafe has done its absolute best to give you that authentic feeling.
Walk into the cafe through a little bamboo forest zone, inspired by the beauty of Kyoto, complete with a mini place of worship. Little accents and items dot the entrance, as an homage to Japan. As one passes through the forest, one enters an enchanted Zen garden, complete with trickling waterfall, birdsong and a pretty arched red bridge on which to cross.
Once you have indulged in the ambiance, it is time to indulge in the food which runs the gamut of Japanese favourites – sushi, sashimi, multiple main dishes and desserts. Home made style, each dish is loving created and beautifully presented.
Here are some of our recommended dishes: somen with tempura and yuzu sauce, tem soba and udon. Reenergize your soul with yuzu soda, yuzu matcha and yuzu ice cream.
There are seatings indoors as well as outdoors.
107/3 Moo 2, T. Chumpu, Saraphi, Chiang Mai
Open daily: 9 am. – 6 pm. (Sat-Sun 9 am. – 8 pm.)
Tel. 098 585 2866
GPS. goo.gl/maps/pjania1QfEmZnmVa6
Nanohana Japanese Restaurant
The newest destination for a taste of Japan in the heart of the city
Japan has many food traditions beloved by Thais and this newest restaurant will appeal for its variety and sheer exquisiteness of each artfully presented dish. From grill to omakase to shabu shabu, izakaya, there are all sorts of experiences, tastes and fun to be had.
Using only premium products and artfully presented, why not check out the 16 course omakase which will leave you spoilt for choice and satiated. There are also two large signature courses created by the chef which are both worth indulging in. Courses start at 1,299 baht and go up to 2,999 baht depending on your hunger or desire!
These courses are only available on Fridays to Sundays for two seatings – 6pm and 8pm.
The courses change as and when the chef decides, as it depends on availability of the best and freshest of produce.
The a la carte menu offers up to eight types of sashimi, again changing seasonally. Many the favourite Japanese premium dishes are available here with delicious Wagyu, fluffy white rice onigiri and a great selection of sushi. If you are a beef lover then definitely order the marbled and tender miyazaki beef which you can cook shabu shabu, grill or whatever style you wish.
And there are all sorts of wonderful drinks, alcoholic or virginal, to wash it all down with.
Nanohana Japanese Restaurant
Phone: 085 564 2649
Line official @nanohana888 https://lin.ee/AdiQ0nH
A unique Japanese gastro bar amongst a sea of same same
Uchi Japanese Gastro Bar has a lot to offer. It serves up delicious Japanese fare using only the best of local and imported produce. It has created a fun pub-vibe with barstools, nooks and crannies where punters can sit back and enjoy a generous array of drinks, with a particularly tempting menu of fine sakes. It invites regulars and locals to settle in and feel at ease, after all uchi in Japanese means ‘our home’, making this destination a great place to pop in for a quite bite during the day, an indulgent drink with colleagues after work, a festive place to indulge in a feast with family and friends, or just a quick stop for a bite.
Whet your appetite with the Hokkaido scallop carpaccio, a delicate dish which highlights the freshness of the quality scallops, topped with the intense flavours of pickled wasabi which dance on the tongue as salmon roe bursts with each bite and all tied together with the ponzu jelly. Meat lovers must order the saga wagyu striploin marbling score, an A4-grade miniyaki which is cut into bite-sized cubes sizzled on some hot coal and dipped in Himalayan sea salt which simply melts away in the mouth. The chutoro tartare is a very delicate dish using the marbled pink tuna stomach, served with salmon roe and pickled wasabi along with crags eggs which burst joyfully and saltily with each bite.
For something truly decadent order the wagyu kikiri foie gras served with aromatic truffle oil; rich, creamy and smooth as silk on the tongue.
The menu is large and very tempting, diverging from the many staple and template menus found in most Japanese restaurants around town. Lovers of Japanese food, lovers of a great night out, lovers of delicious sakes – check out Uchi Japanese Gastro Bar.
Uchi Japanese Gastro Bar
Open Hours 11.00am – midnight
Phone 06-4896-6196
Line official @UchiBar https://lin.ee/jZZfgYN
The Good View 69 Sushi Bar & Bistro
Well known among the city’s hip, The Good View offers a lively ambience venue for dining either before, during or after a night out. Recently, the owners opened a new night time dining option – The Good View 69 Sushi Bar & Bistro. With a Tokyo-inspired representing the essence of an Izakaya restaurant with cozy chairs and intimate corners scattered along with fun objet d’arts and manga collectables, this lively diner welcomes visitors with a parade of mouthwatering quick and tasty Japanese bites. All dishes as well as refreshing drinks, beer and a glass of wine is in the price of 69 baht and are prepared by experienced chef. Each dish is served in a unique and distinctive style, but with a real sense of Japan. The ingredients are fresh and carefully selected. Highly recommended is Gyu Abuki, Sake Nigiri with Cheese, Oysters with Ponzu Sauce.
The Good View 69 Sushi Bar & Bistro
404 Mae Hia, Muang, Chiang Mai 50100
Open Daily: 5pm–midnight
Tel: 053-904406-8,090-3208938
Facebook: Goodview69sushi
Line ID:@goodviewvillage
Tengoku
Award-winning Tengoku de Cuisine has been the recipient of Thailand Tatler’s Thailand’s Best Restaurants for over a decade, a testament to its consistently high quality of food and service. As one of the city’s most beloved and acclaimed Japanese restaurants, Tengoku has the luxury of supplying its kitchen with only the freshest of produce on a daily basis.
Some of the more popular dishes include the delicious grilled eggplant with miso sauce where the rich, and smooth texture of the eggplant is enhanced by the savoury sweetness of miso and the kaleidoscopic three-coloured seaweed salad which combines not just colour, but textures of the seaweeds served with subtle sesame dressing.
Once the appetite has been whetted, move on to the beef tataki where a small mound of thinly sliced raw sirloin served atop slithers of onion and garlic paste. Dip the meat and onion in the ponzu sauce for five seconds and this is a bite of heaven.
Tengoku has three branches offering three different Chiang Mai experiences, there is the classic Tengoku de Cuisine which is very elegant and perfect for private and intimate groups serving a la carte as well as the restaurant’s famous 880 baht buffet, then there is the city branch, Tengoku+Yaki which serves the same but also has a 555 baht brill buffet and bar and lastly Tenkogu Mae On is a resort style Tengoku for those wanting to take their time over a meal in a spectacular country setting.
Open 11am – 2pm and 5.30 – 10pm
Nimman Branch: Tel. 087 725 9888, 053 215 801
Tha Sala Branch: Tel. 053 850 111
San Kamphaeng Branch: Tel. 081 885 5959
