Best Restaurants in Shiga 2026

Shiga Prefecture surrounds Lake Biwa, Japan's largest freshwater lake, just a short train ride east of Kyoto. Landlocked and often overlooked by international visitors, it pairs the UNESCO-listed temple complex of Enryaku-ji on Mt. Hiei with the National Treasure castle at Hikone, Edo-era merchant towns, Shigaraki pottery villages, and some of Japan's finest wagyu in Omi beef.

Shiga Prefecture's cuisine is defined by Lake Biwa, Japan's largest freshwater lake, and the pastureland that produces Omi beef. Omi beef is one of Japan's oldest branded wagyu, raised in the prefecture since the Edo period and graded to the same A4/A5 standards as Kobe beef, and it appears across Otsu, Hikone, and Omihachiman as sukiyaki, shabu-shabu, yakiniku, and teppan steak. The lake itself supplies ayu (sweetfish), moroko, and nigorobuna crucian carp, the last of which is fermented for months or years into funazushi, a pungent, rice-fermented sushi considered a precursor to modern nigiri. Nagahama's Kurokabe Square adds regional noodle dishes such as noppei udon (a thick, starch-bound broth) and saba somen (sweet-simmered mackerel over somen), while Shigaraki in the south pairs its centuries-old pottery tradition with set meals served on locally fired Shigaraki-yaki ware.