Hakata Nadai Yoshizuka Eel Restaurant

In Nakasu, Hakata, there is a restaurant specializing in eel cuisine that is highly praised as “the best eel in Japan” by Tamori, a famous TV host who is also known as a food connoisseur. The restaurant, Hakata Nadai Yoshizuka Eel Restaurant, was established in 1873 and has been in business for over 150 years. Even without Tamori’s “the best eel in Japan” comment, it is easy to imagine that the restaurant has been loved by the locals looking at its long history.

How delicious is the eel at such a representative eel restaurant in Hakata? I had been curious about it for many years, and on the occasion of my visit to Fukuoka in the spring of 2024, I made plans to go to Yoshizuka Eel Restaurant to try their unaju (eel on the rice). For me personally, it has been about a year since I last ate eel at Unagi Kazutomo in Tokyo. I’m really looking forward to it and can’t stop being excited…

Hakata Nadai Yoshizuka Eel Restaurant is now issuing numbered tickets for waiting! No need to wait in long lines at lunch time on Saturdays, even if the crowds are indeed huge!

I arrived at Hakata Nadai Yoshizuka Eel Restaurant around 12:00 on a weekend. It was very crowded. The first floor of the building is the parking lot and waiting area, and the second and third floors are the seating area, but there was a huge crowd at the stairs leading up to the seating area…probably 40 to 50 people.

But you don’t really have to keep waiting inside the restaurant (the reason why everyone was waiting inside was probably because it was raining outside), because there is a numbered ticket machine in front of the entrance on the second floor, and if you register your e-mail address or LINE with the QR code printed on the ticket, you will receive a notification when your turn comes around. You can register your e-mail address or LINE from the QR code printed on the numbered ticket.

Thanks to this system, we do not have to wait in long lines even during busy times, and we can leisurely spend time outside the restaurant. You can also spend your waiting time wandering around the nearby Kawabata Dori shopping street. Incidentally, my waiting time that day was about 20 minutes, a little earlier than expected due to my one-person privilege. Originally, this restaurant is a large store with 72 seats on the second floor alone and up to 56 seats on the third floor, so it seems that the customer turnover is surprisingly fast.

I tried to verify the truth of Tamori’s statement, “The best in Japan,” with the highest grade unaju at Hakata Nadai Yoshizuka Eel Restaurant.

This time, I ordered the Toku Unaju (special unaju), the highest grade of unaju (priced at 4,990 yen (tax included)) at Hakata Nadai Yoshizuka Eel Restaurant. A few moments after I placed my order, a teapot with tea and a plate with eel sauce were first brought to me…

The eel sauce is a secret sauce that has been used since the establishment of the restaurant over 150 years ago, and no newer restaurants can duplicate it, no matter how hard they try…

After a few more minutes of waiting, my longed-for Toku Unaju and liver soup arrived…

As you can see, Yoshizuka Eel Restaurant’s unaju is housed in a two-tiered box, with the grilled eel in the upper tier and the rice in the lower tier separately. Separate containers for the eel, rice, and sauce… Is it just me, or does this alone give it a more luxurious feel than other restaurants’ unaju?

Now, let’s dip the eel in the rich, sweet sauce on a separate plate…

The skin as well as the meat is well grilled and quite fragrant (I heard that this restaurant has its own unique grilling technique named “KONASHI”). The aroma of course is very nice and the texture is crispy, and it is very pleasant to bite into the crispy surface of the kabayaki in your mouth.

On the other hand, the center of the thick meat is soft and fluffy, and you can fully enjoy the elegant texture of the eel. It is packed with flavor, but the fat is not so rich…or rather, not so much, so you can easily eat it all the way through without feeling any clinginess as you go on eating.

Yes, the sauce also had a rich flavor, but the overall taste was mild and very elegant. Since the sauce was well seasoned on the eel, I personally did not feel that I was missing anything at all without the separate sauce. In fact, I liked it because I could feel the flavor of the eel itself more strongly. We can enjoy the sauce on the rice and also enjoy the taste of the broiled eel as it is… It was the same as ordering two unaju and two kabayaki, which made me feel like I had really benefited from the dish.

The unaju comes with a free liver soup (if you don’t like eel liver, you can change to red dashi broth). In the clear, light-flavored broth, there is one nutritious eel liver. It is very nice that the eel liver soup, which is an extra charge at some restaurants, comes with the unaju as a set, isn’t it? The price is less than 5,000 yen including the liver soup, so I personally think it is a very cosy restaurant, contrary to its image as a high-class restaurant.

The only thing that disappointed me was the cooked rice to go with the eel. The rice was generally sticky. If the rice had been cooked with the rice grains standing out, I would have nothing more to complain about this unaju. Whether it really is the best in Japan or not, it definitely has what it takes to win Tamori’s high praise.

Examples of other menu items at Yoshizuka Eel Restaurant (prices include tax)

• Eel bowl: 2 slices of eel, 2,150 yen and up
• Unaju: 4 slices of eel, 3,570 yen and up
• Kabayaki (grilled eel with sause): 6 slices, 5,400 yen
• 6 slices of unagi (grilled eel): 5,500 yen
• Unagi chazuke: 1,800 yen
• Uzaku: 960 yen
• Umaki: 610 yen

Unaju take-out is also available…Access to Hakata Nadai Yoshizuka Eel Restaurant is a 3-minute walk from the nearest station, Kushida-jinja-mae on the Fukuoka City Subway Nanakuma Line.

Hakata Nadai Yoshizuka Eel Restaurant also offers take-out eels. The price for take-out is slightly lower than that for eating in the restaurant. If you are staying at a hotel near the restaurant, it would be wise to save time by taking out and eating in your room rather than going to the trouble of waiting for a long time. If you are interested, please call the restaurant directly and ask for details.

Here are the details of the restaurant…

It is also a 5-minute walk from Nakasu Kawabata Station on the Fukuoka City Subway Airport Line.

P.S. Come to think of it, there is a long-established restaurant in Kyoto that calls itself “the best eel in Japan”…