12 Japanese dishes ranked in the best rated dishes in the world 2022!

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A traditional food guide site Taste Atlas rated Japanese curry first as Best Traditional Dishes of 2022! 

The dishes were rated by reviews of users, and Japanese Kare was 4.92 out of 5 points!

Total of 12 dishes ranked in the top 100, so I listed them all and added my favorite places to eat them!

Katsu curry


Top 10 best dishes from Taste Atlas

The rankings were so fun to read and it introduced me to so many dishes I've never tasted before! Here is the list of the top 10!

  1. Japanese Kare (4.92pt): Japan
  2.  Picanha（4.86pt)：Brazil
  3. Amêijoas à Bulhão Pato（4.86pt)：Portugal
  4. Tangbao（4.83pt)：China
  5. Guotie（4.81pt)：China
  6. Phanaeng Curry（4.80pt)：Thailand
  7. Ceviche mixto（4.79pt)：Peru
  8. Ghormeh sabzi（4.79pt)：Iran
  9. Cağ kebabı (4.78pt)：Turkey
  10. Pollo a la brasa（4.74pt) : Peru

12 dishes ranked in the top 100 from Japan! Tangbao ranked 4th which seems very similar to our gyoza that ranked 47th, so I personally want to find out what makes Tangbao rank much higher!!

The 12 Japanese dishes that were in the top 100!

I listed the dishes that were from Japan, and the restaurant that had the highest reviews from Taste Atlas, and added my favorite places to eat each dish!

 1. Curry

Best shop at Taste Atlas: Soup curry Suage（Hokkaido）

My Best shop: Nakau なか卵

From instant curry in supermarkets and convenience stores to very authentic curries in hotels, Japan is full of curry! I definitely agree that Suage is a great destination for soup curry! 

Recommending a curry shop is actually difficult... but the most surprising one was the beef curry at Nakau! The restaurant chain's curry, oyakodon, and udon are worth every penny. 

21. Tonkotsu Ramen

Best shop at Taste Atlas: Ichiran 一蘭 (Dotonbori but the main branch is from Fukuoka)

My Best shop: ShinShin

Ichiran is also a very special shop for me, but ShinShin is top of my list. ShinShin is only in Fukuoka, so it's a must-go if you're there!  I've talked about ShinShin in the post below.

30. Katsudon

Best shop at Taste Atlas: Katsudon Hozenji Yokocho (Osaka, Japan) 喝鈍 法善寺横丁

My Best shop: Wako 和幸

Katsudon is tonkatsu that is simmered with onions, soy sauce based dashi, and eggs.

While katsudon is what Japanese love, some Japanese would say they like to keep the crispiness of the tonkatsu, which becomes watery when it's simmered into a katsudon. So when I eat donburi style I prefer to have oyakodon, which is simmered chicken, not pork cutlet to become a katsudon.

With that said, katsu don is still very very good... And I'm always happiest going to this chain Wako. I'm always surprised a chain restaurant can keep this quality! Even their dressing for the cabbage is so tasty... My family used to buy it every once in a while back home.

The rice, the shijimi clam miso soup, and the cabbage have free refills which is another perk of choosing this tonkatsu/katsudon restaurant!

43 Curry Rice

Best shop at Taste Atlas: Rojiura Curry SAMURAI. Shimokitazawa, Tokyo

My Best shop: Ippe Koppe

When it comes to curry my family cooks our own curry which is my favorite... so for curry rice I usually go for "ethnic curries" which basically refer to Southeast Asian or Indian curries, and my absolute favorite is Krung Siam, a Thai restaurant that serves pad pong curry.

So I asked a gourmet friend for her recommendation and she loves this katsu curry which looks so tempting, too. The katsu is made by a popular tonkatsu shop Okuとんかつ檍 蒲田本店 the curry restaurant Ippe Koppe is next to it with the same owner!!

The train station closest to the shop, Kamata is the transit station from Haneda Airport to go everywhere else in the Tokyo area! I'm going there as soon as I land in Tokyo!

44. Shoyu Ramen

Best shop at Taste Atlas: Kitakata Ramen Matsushokudo (Fukushima) 喜多方ラーメン 松食堂

My Best shop:Kitakata Ramen Bannai (Tokyo) 喜多方ラーメン坂内

My favorite shoyu ramen is Kirita Seimen in Sapporo, but I still remember when I had Kitakata Ramen Bannai in Yurakucho. My dad introduced me to the shop that he loves how the whole bowl is filled with pork char siew, and it's just 1,000 yen!

Kitakata ramen is a very orthodox, traditional-tasting shoyu ramen. While many new-wave shoyu ramen is getting trendy like the Toyama Black, the orthodox type of ramen is something we love coming back to. 

I remember going there the next day, too.

46. Salmon Sushi

Best shop at Taste Atlas: Sushi Dai Tsukiji (Tokyo) 築地すし大

My Best shop: Kaiten sushi Nemuro Hanamaru

Hanamaru is one of my favorite conveyer belt kaiten sushi restaurant (回転寿司） chains from Hokkaido! They now have outlets around Tokyo Station.

Salmon nigiri was actually invented by Norwegians and it became popular through kaiten sushi chains in Japan. So if you're going for salmon nigiri, I'd say the variety of salmon nigiri is best experienced in kaiten sushi!!

Where the kaiten sushi restaurant Hanamaru is from, Nemuro city is an area in East Hokkaido that is one of the best seafood in Japan, especially hotate scallops, sanma fish, hanasaki crabs, and oysters, and if it's in season Hanamaru will have it on the menu!

Hanamaru now has a stand up type sushi bar, in which you can order from 1 piece each. (kaiten sushi serves 2 pieces/plate most of the time) It's closer to the traditional fast-food sushi style...I'm very tempted to go🤤

47. Gyoza

Best shop at Taste Atlas: Chao Chao Sanjo Kiyamachi (Kyoto) 餃々 三条木屋町店

Sanjo Kiyamachi in Kyoto is a drinking district where I used to work, and Chao Chao is very popular! Just next door, there are two gyoza places I used to go to a lot.

Min Min is a small, open-kitchen Chinese restaurant where I just loved sitting at the counter to watch the chefs cook. It's so sophisticated and the gyoza and the fried rice were so good...

Gyoza no Osho is a gyoza restaurant chain from Kyoto scattered everywhere in Japan now. If you ask for miso dare (miso sauce) they will give you this special sauce which is a sauce I cannot forget. I'm very unhappy that the outlets outside of Kyoto don't have the miso sauce.

54. Yakiudon

Best shop at Taste Atlas: Darumado (Fukuoka) 小倉焼うどん発祥の店 だるま堂
My Best shop: Same as Taste Atlas!

Kokura in Fukuoka prefecture is another place I hear so many good stories about food and is on my bucket list of visiting. Darumado is the restaurant that invented the Kokurayaki udon, and I'm also tempted to try it!

If you're not in the Kokura area, yakiudon can be found in food stalls in matsuri festivals, or izakayas that are everywhere in Japan!! 

56. Ebifurai Deep fried shrimp


Katsukura is a dedicated tonkatsu chain from Kyoto. I used to go to katsukura on a special occasion when I was a student in Kyoto. The amazing thing about the chain is you can find out which branded pork they use in each outlet from their homepage!

You can either eat very good ebifurai at tonkatsu shops, or yoshoku shops (洋食店）which translates to "western food shop." Kitchen Punch is a traditional yoshoku restaurant that is loved by the locals. I love having the ebifurai and kani cream croquette (crab meat croquette) whenever I'm in Nakameguro!

67. Gyudon

Best shop at Taste Atlas: Matsuya (Shibuya, Tokyo)松屋 渋谷センター街店
My Best shop: Same as Taste Atlas!

Gyudon is a dish I cook at home, with a bowl of rice and beef shigureni, so I can't remember eating it out. But out of the 3 famous gyudon chains, Matsuya is also my favorite.

Not only do I like the gyudon but the miso soup is so addictive...!

83. Miso Ramen

Best shop at Taste Atlas: Ramen Oyaji Machida (Machida, Japan) 北海道らーめん おやじ 町田店

Tadokoro Shoten is a ramen chain that focuses on miso ramen! The taste of miso varies in different regions of Japan, and Tadokoro Shoten has miso ramen from Hokkaido, Shinshu, Tokyo, and Ise, and currently has limited miso ramen from Hiroshima...🤤

85. Shio Ramen

Best shop at Taste Atlas: Ramen Sen no Kaze (Kyoto) らーめん千の風 四条河原町店

My Best shop: Sapporo Ichiban Shio Ramen...!

Until you actually visit Sapporo and see that miso ramen is everywhere, many Japanese including myself misunderstand that Sapporo is famous for shio ramen. 

And one big reason is because of this instant ramen. The Sapporo Ichiban series also has a miso flavor, but I would say 9 out of 10 Japanese prefer the shio. There are so many instant noodles in Japan, but this is always the bestseller along with the first-ever instant noodle Chicken Ramen and Maruchan Seimen!

When I was a student, I came across a senior cooking nabe hotpot using the soup from the shio ramen, and cooking the noodles as shime 締め or "end of the meal dish." Very economical and unbelievably tasty!! The instant noodle is less than 1 USD, so if I am broke then I will still probably live happily eating this noodle every day :)

Hope it helps!

I'm very happy that I found Taste Atlas! I read the manga One Piece and I take myself like Sanji, trying to look for the "All Blue" or where all ingredients of the world meet. I was excited that Taste Atlas is one answer to the "All Blue!"

I thought I could bring what I know about Japanese food, and I hope this helps my fellow foodies that come to visit the country!

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