Yokohama Chinatown: What to Eat, the Temples and How to Get There
TripToJapan.com Editorial Team
Jul 5, 2026
Contents
TripToJapan.com Editorial Team
Yokohama had no Chinatown until 1859, and then it had one almost overnight. The port opened to foreign trade that year, Chinese merchants arrived alongside the Western traders because they could write the same characters as the Japanese and could act as go-betweens, and within a generation there was a dense grid of shops, temples and restaurants on reclaimed marshland. It has been there ever since, through an earthquake, a firebombing and three complete rebuilds.
Yokohama Chinatown is the largest in Japan and among the largest anywhere, several hundred restaurants and shops packed into a grid you can cross on foot in ten minutes. It costs nothing to walk, it stays open late, and it sits 30 to 45 minutes from central Tokyo, which makes it the easiest half-day food trip out of the capital.
The district is called Chukagai in Japanese and sits in Naka ward, a few blocks inland from the waterfront. Ten decorated gates mark its edges, each one painted for a compass direction and its guardian animal: Genbumon the black tortoise in the north, Suzakumon the vermilion bird in the south. Zenrinmon, on the main east-west street, is the one most people photograph.
Most of the families who settled here came from Guangdong, which is why Cantonese cooking still dominates the menus, though Taiwanese, Sichuan and Shanghai kitchens all hold ground now.
It is a working neighborhood rather than an attraction built for visitors. Two Taoist temples anchor it, a Chinese school has operated here since 1898, and the restaurants are aimed at Japanese day-trippers as much as at foreign tourists. The wider history of Chinatowns explains why treaty ports produced them; Yokohama's is the clearest Japanese case.
Four main streets do most of the work. Chukagai Odori is the central spine, lined with the big restaurants and the buffet touts. Kanteibyo Dori runs past the older temple and holds the densest run of street stalls. Nishimon Dori and Ichiba Dori are quieter, cheaper, and where the smaller kitchens are.
We'll build a costed, pre-planned Japan itinerary you can customise to your taste.
Two approaches work here. Graze the street stalls until you cannot eat anything else, or book a table and take a proper Cantonese meal slowly. Doing both in one visit is ambitious.
Stalls line the main streets, most of them selling one or two things, and almost everything falls between ¥300 and ¥800.
Buta man, the fist-sized steamed pork bun, is the signature item, lifted straight out of stacked bamboo steamers
Panda man, the same bun shaped and inked as a panda face, usually filled with custard or sweet bean
Yaki shoronpo, pan-fried soup dumplings, crisp on the base and full of scalding broth
Koshou mochi, the Taiwanese black pepper bun, baked against the inside wall of a clay oven
Peking duck rolls, sold by the piece rather than by the bird
Egg tarts, Cantonese rather than Portuguese, in a flaky shell instead of a custard-burnt one. The egg tart's origins show how far these recipes traveled before landing here
Goma dango, fried sesame balls with sweet bean paste
Annin tofu, apricot kernel pudding, which is the standard way to finish
Eat standing near the stall rather than walking. Yokohama, like most of Japan, treats eating on the move as bad manners, and most stalls set out a bin and a ledge for exactly this reason.
Shumai deserves separate mention. The Yokohama version uses pork and onion rather than shrimp, and it became a national souvenir through Kiyoken's station bento boxes, sold on platforms here since 1928. The Yokohama style of shumai is distinct enough that people travel here specifically to carry boxes of it home.
There are several hundred, and the ones with the longest histories are the safest bets.
Manchinro has traded since 1892 and is the oldest surviving Cantonese restaurant in the district, with a formal main building and a cheaper dim sum branch a few doors along. Jukeihanten does Sichuan at a serious level, including a mapo tofu that is not toned down. Kaseiro and Daichinro are the other long-established Cantonese names, both better at dinner than lunch.
For cheaper eating, look for tabehodai, the all-you-can-eat deals that run roughly ¥2,000 to ¥3,500 for 90 minutes and are what a large share of Japanese visitors actually come for. Quality swings wildly between them, so judge by the queue rather than the photographs on the board.
A listing of the district's restaurants is worth using to book ahead at the formal places, which fill up on weekends and during festivals.
Kanteibyo, founded in 1873 and rebuilt after both the 1923 earthquake and the 1945 air raids, is dedicated to Guan Yu, the Han dynasty general worshipped as a god of business and loyalty. Walking into the precinct is free. To approach the main altar you buy a set of five incense sticks for ¥500 and light them at the altars in a fixed order.
Masobyo, opened in 2006, honors Mazu, the sea goddess of Chinese sailors, which makes obvious sense in a port. The Ma Zu Miao temple works the same way: free grounds, and a ¥500 incense set to enter the hall itself.
Both are in active use. Watch what other people do before copying it, and do not photograph anyone praying.
Motomachi-Chukagai Station on the Minatomirai line is the closest stop, and Exit 2 puts you at the Chaoyang gate in under a minute.
From Shibuya Station, Tokyu Toyoko line trains run straight through onto the Minatomirai line with no change, taking around 35 minutes for about ¥550. From Tokyo Station, ride the JR Tokaido or Keihin-Tohoku line to Yokohama Station and change there, or take the JR Negishi line to Ishikawacho, a five-minute walk from the southern gates.
Budget 30 to 45 minutes each way from central Tokyo. The Minatomirai line is privately run and not covered by the Japan Rail Pass, though the JR legs to Yokohama or Ishikawacho are.
For a longer day with someone explaining what you are eating, a private day trip to Yokohama from Tokyo pairs the port district with Chinatown.
Most restaurants run roughly 11:00 to 21:00 or 22:00. Street stalls open around 10:00 or 11:00 and start shutting by early evening, so the grazing is best done in daylight. Individual shops pick their own closing days, which means something is always shut and the district as a whole never is.
Weekday afternoons are the calmest, with no queues at the buns. Weekend lunchtimes are shoulder to shoulder, which is part of the atmosphere but slows everything down.
Chinese New Year, late January or February depending on the lunar calendar, is the big event: lion dances through the streets, a costumed parade and firecrackers, spread over about two weeks and closing with the Lantern Festival. Chushusetsu, the moon festival in September, is the second date worth planning around.
The city tourism listing publishes the festival dates each year, and the district page covers the gates and temples in more detail.
Food is the main souvenir. Vacuum-packed shumai, moon cakes, sesame candy and frozen buns all travel, and every second shopfront sells some version of them.
Past food, the district deals in Chinese tea, ceramics, fortune telling, qipao rental and a startling volume of panda merchandise. A roundup of Yokohama souvenirs covers what is worth the suitcase space.
Cards work in restaurants and larger shops. Carry ¥3,000 to ¥5,000 in cash anyway, for stalls, incense and the smaller counters.
Walking the district: free
Street food: ¥300 to ¥800 an item, or about ¥2,000 for a full graze
All-you-can-eat lunch: ¥2,000 to ¥3,500
Mid-range sit-down dinner: ¥3,000 to ¥6,000 per person
Formal Cantonese dinner: ¥8,000 to ¥15,000
Temple incense set: ¥500
Train from central Tokyo: around ¥550 each way
A half day here, street food and trains included, lands under ¥4,000 per person.
Yes, if you come for the eating rather than the sightseeing. The streets take half an hour to walk and the two temples another half hour, so the length of the visit is however long you want to spend with food in your hand.
It works best as half a day attached to the rest of the port city, with the Minato Mirai waterfront, Sankeien garden and the Cup Noodles Museum all within 20 minutes. Our guide to street food across Japan sets the buns and dumplings here against what you will find in Osaka and Fukuoka, and Chinatown itself is the anchor for any Yokohama day.
Arrive hungry and skip lunch beforehand. A route around Tokyo and its day trips slots this in as an afternoon, and a first trip built around Tokyo with a Yokohama night gives it a full evening instead.
