Handmade Hamburger steak Tokura Lukua Osaka

On April 5, 2022, Tokura, a handmade hamburger steak restaurant with three locations in Kyoto City that has been attracting a lot of media attention on TV for its juicy hamburgers, opened its first location outside Kyoto Prefecture in LUCUA Osaka, which is directly connected to JR Osaka Station. Having conquered all three Tokura restaurants in the past, I naturally did not dislike their hamburgers, and I was planning to visit the fourth restaurant, LUCUA Osaka, in the near future.

But even after a while after it actually opened, I couldn’t bring myself to visit it. Why? Because I knew it would be extremely crowded. After all, the store is located in a large commercial facility that is very popular among young people. Even if you skip lunch time and go during idle hours, it is easy to see that the wait time would be at least 30 minutes or more.

But one day I thought to myself, “That’s not good enough…” and went to the 10th floor of LUCUA Osaka, bracing myself for a long line and a reasonable wait. As I got off the elevator on the 10th floor and proceeded to the back of the building, I began to see Tokura LUCUA Osaka, a handmade hamburger steak restaurant that looked just as I had expected…

The percentage of young female customers was much higher than I had imagined… This is what handmade hamburger steak restaurant Tokura LUCUA OSAKA looks like..

It was around 2:15 p.m. on a Saturday when I arrived at Tokura LUCUA Osaka. As expected, there were nearly 30 customers waiting in line at the storefront even at such a late hour, making it probably the busiest restaurant among all Tokura restaurants. The wait time from this point until I could enter the store was exactly 30 minutes. To be honest, I was surprised it only took 30 minutes.

According to the Lucua Osaka website, there are a total of 33 seats at the Tokura Lucua Osaka restaurant. I would like to say that even a lone customer like me can easily use the restaurant…but I was a little surprised to see the percentage of female customers was much higher than I had imagined. Perhaps it was just a coincidence of the time of day, but more than half of the customers were groups of women, and most of the rest were partners. Families with small children, a familiar sight at large commercial establishments, could only be confirmed by one couple as I was leaving the restaurant. It is a hamburger steak restaurant that children love, but…
Well, this may have something to do with the fact that LUCUA Osaka as a whole targets women in their 20s and 30s, but the atmosphere of the restaurant is quite sparkling, very different from the family-like atmosphere of the three restaurants in Kyoto. The interior of the restaurant also looks like a Scandinavian-style café with white walls…and for this reason, it may be a restaurant that requires a surprising amount of courage, especially for a single male customer.

I tested the amount of gravy that poured out of the Cheese hamburger steak….

This time I ordered a cheese hamburger steak from the “standard” hamburger steak menu, which consists of 12 different kinds of hamburger steak. There are two sizes of hamburger steak, 180g and 300g, and I chose the 300g size for 1,350 yen (tax included). However, this price is for a single item, so if you want to add rice or other dishes, you must order a separate set menu. There are four set menus available, including rice or bread, miso soup, etc. I ordered the cheapest set, A set (rice or bread, miso soup, and pickles, priced at +230 yen).

About 10 minutes after ordering, the 300g cheese hamburger steak + A set is ready…

Except for the fact that it is a cheese hamburger, it looks the same as the hamburgers we have eaten at the other three restaurants. It is exactly the same as the hamburger steak at Torokura in Kyoto. But, is the all-important gravy level properly maintained? Let’s find out right away…

The first time I put the chopsticks in, the juices came out much more moderately than I expected, and I thought, “What? But the second time I put the chopsticks in, it came out well. To be honest, I would have liked the gravy to flow a little more vigorously, but I think the final amount of gravy is about the same as in the video recorded four years ago at Tokura Katsura Head Shop.

Let’s move on to the actual meal… The surface of the hamburger steak is lightly charred, and when you put it in your mouth, the aroma of charred meat wafts softly to your nose. The inside of the hamburger is soft and fluffy, and the minced meat is so fine that even small children can easily eat it. The juices that flowed out of the meat made the flavor of the meat a little bland, but the original sauce on the hamburger had a strong sourness from the tomatoes and the aroma of wine, and if you put some of the juices back on the plate, the flavor of the meat will recover… the taste and flavor of Tokura in Kyoto has been well reproduced. However, the presence of cheese was relatively weak due to the 300 grams of meat. I wished I could add another piece of cheese as an option…” I thought while eating.

One more thing I have to mention about the white rice. The rice used at Lucua Osaka is apparently sourced from Hachidaime Gihey, a famous rice restaurant in Kyoto. I don’t think such information was available four years ago when I visited Kyoto restaurants, but aside from that, it is good to be able to promote Kyoto in Osaka’s Umeda area. I believe that you can enjoy the juicy hamburger steak that has been well-received on TV without going to Kyoto.

Examples of hamburger steak menu at Tokura LUCUA Osaka (all 180g single items, prices include tax)

• Original hamburger steak 950 yen
  Japanese-style grated hamburger steak 1,060 yen
  Hot pepper hamburger steak 1060 yen
  Mentaiko Mayonnaise Hamburger Steak 1220 yen
  Clam chowder hamburger steak – 1220 yen
  Vegetable burger with tomato sauce – 1220 yen
  Carbonara hamburger steak 1220 yen

Take-out service is also available…Tokura LUCUA Osaka is located on the 10th floor of LUCUA Osaka, directly connected to JR Osaka Station.

At such handmade hamburger steak restaurant Tokura LUCUA Osaka, take-out of the hamburger steak menu is also available…

You can take out all 12 kinds of hamburgers from the store, and the price is the same as when you eat in (although you need to pay for a separate container). Well, to be honest, it doesn’t seem like there is much demand for take-out at this restaurant, but I’ll introduce it as an informative offer related to the restaurant. If you want to try a juicy hamburger steak at home or at the office, why not consider using the take-out service?

Now, here are the details of the restaurant. Store data is here…

It takes only 5 minutes on foot from Osaka Umeda Station on the Hankyu Railway Line to LUCUA Osaka.

P.S. If you are looking for delicious western-style restaurant in Osaka, please drop by the article below…