Famous Food In Sapporo, Japan: The Ultimate Guide
Last Updated on October 24, 2025 by Audrey
Curious why Hokkaido is a foodie's paradise? Learn about famous food in Sapporo!
If you’re visiting Sapporo soon, you may have heard some murmurs about how amazing the food is in Japan’s northern capital.
The whispers you’ve been hearing are correct. The northern region is famous for having some of the most delicious seafood in Japan, as well as indulgent desserts made with specialized Hokkaido milk, and delectable regional dishes that you won’t easily find anywhere else in the country.
Sapporo is the perfect place to try some of the most amazing dishes that Hokkaido is known for. While I don’t usually call myself a foodie, I bowed down to the “Kingdom of Food” like a mere peasant. I could not stop eating in this city! The food was so incredible, I didn’t want to go back to Tokyo.
Here’s what to eat in Sapporo, including my favorite restaurant recommendations!
The Top Sapporo Famous Foods
I’ve categorized Sapporo’s famous foods into a few categories: local dishes, seafood, produce, desserts, and drinks. Hokkaido’s cuisine is unique due to its history with Western influence, which you’ll find in its use of butter, cheese, and potatoes.
Local Dishes
Here are the main entree dishes Sapporo is well-known for!
Miso Ramen (味噌ラーメン)
Sapporo is the birthplace of miso ramen, known for its rich, umami-packed broth made from miso (fermented soybeans). To be totally honest, I’m not a big ramen fan because I usually find tonkotsu ramen to feel too thick and fatty. Miso ramen is a fantastic variation that feels a bit lighter.
You can add a local touch by topping it with butter and corn, or you can even try Sapporo’s other specialty ramen Butter Corn ramen.
🍜 Restaurant Recommendation: Some of the best spots to try it are Ramen Shingen, Ebisoba Ichigen, or you could go to Sapporo Ramen Alley in Susukino for a vibe.
Jingisukan (Genghis Khan) (ジンギスカン)
Genghis Khan is lamb barbecue grilled on a dome-shaped grill, a Hokkaido classic cuisine. The tender lamb comes in various cuts, and you can try it marinated for extra flavor.
During hanami season, it’s a tradition to have jingisukan underneath the falling cherry blossoms. Many parks will have street vendors that allow you to rent the grill equipment so you can enjoy the experience stress-free.
While I didn’t get to try Genghis Khan at the park, I tried it for the first time at Extreme Salt Cured Genghis Khan and thought it was delicious! This restaurant is on the 10th floor with a great view, and I also liked that they put English labels on your meats so you know exactly what you’re tasting.
👍 Pro tip: You can order à la carte or AYCE (all you can eat). For your first time, I recommend buying à la carte. It’s only lamb, so you might get tired of the taste after a few rounds.
🍖 Restaurant Recommendation: I recommend Extreme Salt Cured Genghis Khan for a beautiful view of Susukino or Sapporo Beer Garden after a visit to the Sapporo Beer Museum.
Soup Curry (スープカレー)
Soup curry is the regional specialty Sapporo is most well-known for, and is the perfect comfort food all year round.
While traditional Japanese curry tends to have a thicker consistency like sauce, soup curry’s broth is lighter without sacrificing flavor. It usually comes with rice, your choice of meat (lamb, pork, or chicken usually), and an assortment of roasted veggies.
Personally, I enjoy a thicker, saucier texture. However, you would feel lacking if you don’t try soup curry at least once while you’re here, so I wouldn’t skip this one.
🍛 Restaurant Recommendation: I recommend trying soup curry at Garaku or Suage+. Both are popular soup curry restaurants located in Susukino, the city’s downtown district.
Ishikari Nabe (石狩鍋)
👍 Best season to eat: Autumn
Hot pot is one of my favorite foods, so you know I had to try it the Hokkaido way! You’ll find this out sooner or later, but Hokkaido has the largest fall salmon harvest in Japan.
Ishikari Nabe uses fresh salmon or trout as the focus in a simmering miso base, and you can add tofu, a side of vegetables, and even some butter (yesss, the butter) to the mix.
This hotpot draws its name from Ishikari, a city only about a 45-minute drive from Sapporo. You can try this regional cuisine in a traditional izakaya or seafood restaurant in the city.
🍲 Restaurant Recommendation: If you’re willing to travel a little bit, Kindaitei in Ishikari has been open since 1880, and is said to be where this local dish was first created!
Hokkaido Chicken Karaage (Zangi,ざんぎ)
Zangi is Hokkaido-style Chicken Karaage, an intensely flavorful variation of your typical fried chicken. This dish was first created in Kushiro, a harbor city in East Hokkaido.
You’ll find that zangi is a little larger in size than typical chicken karaage, and is packed with seasoning and spices before getting deep-fried.
You can eat zangi as a main dish or a side dish. It’s perfectly paired with dumplings, ramen, and Sapporo beer.
🍗 Restaurant Recommendation: Sapporo Zangi Hompo is a specialty restaurant that serves zangi in 10 different ways.
Fresh Seafood
The seafood from Hokkaido is so incredible that it deserves its own section.
Autumn Salmon (Aki-Zake, 秋鮭)
👍 Best season to eat: September to October
Hokkaido autumn salmon, also known as Aki-zake, is best enjoyed in fall, when the salmon travel back home to where they were born. That’s right, that delicious, fatty salmon you love Japan for? 90% of domesticated autumn salmon is from Hokkaido!
It’s usually served in donburi (rice bowl), as a rice ball, as ikura (salmon roe), or grilled. I personally love getting the salmon and ikura donburi, which combines raw salmon with the delicious fish eggs. During the peak season, you can also try Chan Chan Yaki, a local Hokkaido dish where salmon is grilled on an iron plate and served with miso, butter, and veggies.
🍣 Restaurant Recommendation: Nijo Market or Sapporo Curb Market
Hanasaki Crab (Hanasakigani, 花咲ガニ)
👍 Best season to eat: July to September
The people flock to Hokkaido to eat crab, since the northern region gets such a great catch, and it’s served at an affordable price. And I, too am one of the people.
Now, you’ll find that I put two crabs on this list, though Hokkaido also has the horsehair crab and snow crab. I didn’t want to make this post all about crab, so bear with my choices.
Anyway, these two crab species have very different tastes. Hanasaki crab has a sweet flavor, and is known for its spiny surface. It’s also only caught in Nemuro on the eastern Hokkaido coast, so it’s more exclusive.
A few ways you can try it are boiled, in kani meshi (seasoned rice with crab), or in hot pot (shabu).
🦀 Restaurant Recommendation: You can try them fresh at Nijo Market or Sapporo Curb Market, where you can pick a live crab and have it prepared on the spot.
Red King crab (tarabagani, たらばがに)
👍 Best season to eat: September to January
Red king crab is one of the most luxurious delicacies you can try, famous for its huge size, meaty legs, and sweet and delicate flavor.
It’s also the most expensive variety, but what can you do? We all love thick legs, do we not?
🦀 Dining Recommendation: You can go to a crab specialty restaurant like Kani Honke, where you can have crab prepared in every single way. Restaurant KaniKousen is also a great pick, known for its king crab donburi.
Hokkai shrimp (Hokkai ebi, 北海海老)
👍 Best season to eat: Summer, Fall
Hokkai shrimp become a bright, vivid red color when you boil them, so they’ve earned the affectionate nickname “rubies of the sea”.
I didn’t realize I was eating these special shrimp when I went to a seafood restaurant in Hakodate, only remembering the experience when I learned about their distinct red color later. The flavor is plump, chewy, and sweet, and the shrimps are boiled as soon as they’re caught for maximum flavor.
These shrimp are fished just twice a year during summer and fall, and their fishing season is quite short, usually just June-July and October-November.
Sea Urchin (Uni, ウニ)
👍 Best season to eat: All year
I have to say, I never liked uni whenever I tried it in the States, whether it was from California or New York. Most uni I’ve tried has a certain aftertaste that I’m not really fond of.
But the uni in Japan, though? But the uni in Hokkaido? Now that’s a whole different flavor, and I love the uni here.
While uni is harvested all over the nation, uni from Hokkaido is particularly prized for its exceptionally high quality. It’s rich and creamy and has a hint of sweetness. It could be due to the different ocean environments and the cold waters in the north.
While many people love eating uni just raw by itself, I prefer to eat it in a donburi with an assortment of other fresh fish.
🍽️ Restaurant Recommendation: Nijo Market for the freshest selection of uni!
Scallops (Hotatekai, ホタテ貝)
👍 Best season to eat: Winter
Hokkaido has two major scallop production areas, the Okhotsk Sea just off northern Hokkaido, and Uchiura Bay.
Scallops harvested from the icy waters of the northern region are prized for being meaty, large, and sweet. The cold season makes the scallops concentrate their natural sugars and make them taste even better!
You can eat these scallops in a variety of ways. Raw in sushi or sashimi, grilled, or fried. I like them both ways, so I encourage you to try them raw if you haven’t before. If that sounds too experimental for you, you can always order it in a soup or with noodles.
🍽️ Restaurant Recommendation: Shihachi Fresh Fish Store serves generously portioned donburi with delicious scallops.
Desserts
This one is my personal favorite category because I love desserts, and Hokkaido is the best place for them. Hokkaido milk is famous worldwide for its creamy, sweet vanilla flavor. Most of Japan’s milk is sourced from Hokkaido, and once you have a taste, regular milk just doesn’t hit the same.
Hokkaido Soft Serve Ice Cream (sofuto kurīmu,ソフトクリーム)
You should really try Hokkaido milk in every single form and product, but soft serve ice cream made from Hokkaido milk is particularly irresistible.
Therefore, you must have a soft serve of Hokkaido ice cream when you’re in the region! It’s a non-negotiable. Unless you hate ice cream, in which case, there are tons of alternatives (cheesecake, maybe)?
Ice cream and summertime go hand in hand, and Hokkaido ice cream is next level. I brought Lactaid from home just so I could enjoy it, and it was the best decision I made all trip. Especially because I had a cone almost every day…
🍦 Restaurant Recommendation: I think you’ll be happy with any ice cream shop you wander into in Sapporo, but I’ll add that Farm Tomita’s lavender ice cream is very famous and worth trying.
Bocca White Pudding (牧家の プリン)
One of my most memorable foods during my trip to Sapporo was when I tried Bocca white pudding from a local shop during a full-day tour.
This is one of the coolest desserts I’ve tried. It comes in a perfect, squishy circle stuck inside a balloon. Honestly, part of the fun is playing with the ball and popping it to get to the pudding. You use a toothpick, and when you pop it, the pudding is instantly released perfectly! As a mature 28-year-old, I was extremely entertained and delighted.
Presentation aside, the pudding is delicious with a panna cotta consistency. You can also add caramel sauce that is included with it to give extra flavor, but it’s just as good by itself.
🍮 Where to find: Honestly, it’s a little tricky to find these. I recommend just checking out local grocery stores in Sapporo, or you can try a Bikkuri Donkey location. You can check Bocca's store locations too.
Kitakaro’s cream puffs (shukurimu, シュークリーム)
Kitakaro is a well-known Japanese patisserie on the popular Sakaimachi Street in Otaru, a port town that is only a 30-minute train ride from Sapporo. Due to its proximity, Otaru is a popular day trip option!
They sell all types of cream puffs here, and they are legendary. First, they’re humungous. Second, the puff shells are so fluffy, and the cream filling is just divine.
🍽️ Restaurant Recommendation: The main shop is in Otaru, but there are a couple of locations in Sapporo. If you’d like to enjoy it in a sit-down cafe, you can visit Kitakaro Sapporo Honkan Cafe.
Local Produce
Hokkaido grows delicious fruits and veggies too.
Yubari melon (Yūbari Meron, 夕張メロン)
Best season to eat: May-August
Hokkaido melons ripen in the summer, and are unimaginably sweet and refreshing. Of all the varieties, the king has got to be Yubari melons, a special strain known for their perfect look and extra sweet taste. Yes, these melons are aesthetic.
In fact, back in 2019, a pair of Yubari King Melons sold for an incredible ¥55 million. Want to guess how much that is in USD? It’s $45,000!!!! Don’t worry, I’m shook too.
Now, you don’t have to try Yubari melons per se, but they’re certainly the cream of the melon crop. However, I do recommend trying a combo of Hokkaido soft serve with a bowl of fresh melon for an incredible dessert combination made of local ingredients!
Yubari isn’t too far from Sapporo either, in case you ever want to visit the farm or enjoy their all-you-can-eat melon buffet in the summertime.
🍈 Where to find: Sapporo Market, Yubari
Sweet Corn (Toukibi, とうきび)
Best season to eat: July-September
If you’re a corn lover, you’re going to go crazy for Hokkaido’s “pure white” sweet corn. This corn variation thrives in Hokkaido’s colder climate, and is ridiculously sweet and buttery, with a pure white color.
It’s best enjoyed raw, but can also be sold grilled at market stalls. Locals like to add soy sauce to it as well!
🌽 Where to find: Check out Sapporo’s Toukibi Wagon in Odori Park from late April to early October!
Drinks
To round out a perfect meal, why not order one of the city's signature drinks?
Sapporo Beer (bīru, ビール)
Okay, this one shouldn’t even need an explanation. Why wouldn’t you try a fresh, cold Sapporo beer in the city it came from?!
However, maybe you’re interested in some lore. Well, Sapporo is Japan’s oldest beer brand, and the Sapporo Beer Museum also happens to be one of the top attractions in the city, where you can taste a variety of Sapporo beer products, including limited editions and seasonal brews.
The adjacent Sapporo Beer Garden also happens to be an excellent place to try Genghis Khan at the same time! These two items pair together perfectly, by the way.
🍺 Pro tip: Keep in mind you have to be at least 20 years old to enjoy Sapporo beer!
Pure Rice Sake (Junmai, 純米)
Hokkaido has an abundance of high-quality water, and that quality is reflected in its sake products!
Sake from Hokkaido is usually junmai, which has a light and dry taste. It’s a perfect match for Hokkaido’s seafood. For sake lovers, this variation is worth trying out while you’re in the region.
You can join a fun bar-hopping tour and get local recommendations, or you can pop into any local izakaya and give it a taste.
🍶 Where to find: While it’s not technically in Sapporo, Tanaka Sake Brewing in Otaru makes all of its sake from Hokkaido-grown rice and water from the melted snow of Mount Tengu! The store offers free sake tastings, so I highly recommend stopping by if you take a day trip to Otaru.
Sapporo Food Tours
Going on a foodie tour with a local guide could be one of the best ways to familiarize yourself with Hokkaido's regional delicacies.
Customized 3-Hour Food Tour
On this personalized food tour, you'll get to visit Sapporo's most central food hubs with your local host. They'll take your preferences into account and introduce you to Sapporo's local specialties, including soup curry, Genghis Khan lamb barbecue, Hokkaido ramen, and more.
Lake Toya, Noboribetsu, & Mt. Uzu gourmet tour
This tour is a super fun one, because you get to taste your way around Hokkaido!
You'll visit Lake Toya, Noboribetsu, Mount Uzu, and will visit Lake Hill Farm, where you can try their legendary lavender Hokkaido milk gelato.
You'll see the stunning landscapes that Hokkaido is so well known for, like the sulfur hot springs and beautiful caldera lakes in Shikotsu-Toya National park.
Plus, you'll get to try local dishes in the towns you visit. Pretty great way to spend a day!
Make Wagashi Sweets In Sapporo
In this 2-hour dessert class, you'll make your own neriki, a traditional Japanese dessert, with guidance from a chef who served the Japanese imperial family!
This dessert has roots from over 1,000 years ago, so it's a wonderful way to learn about the culture while making a beautiful dessert.
Conclusion: Sapporo Famous Foods
Hope you enjoyed learning about the top 18 famous foods in Sapporo! I absolutely love the food in Hokkaido and think about going back and eating their delicious seafood one more time. (Then I would chase it with a Bocca white pudding, FYI).
If you get to try some of the food listed here, let me know what you think! Or if I’m missing something on the list, feel free to drop a comment!
Hope you have the best trip to Sapporo. If you need some itinerary ideas, I have a 1-day, 3-day, and 5-day itinerary. Hokkaido milk forever!!
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