About The Tabelog Award｜The Tabelog Award 2026 [Tabelog]

About The Tabelog Award

The Tabelog Award is
Japan’s largest restaurant award,
determined by food lovers, based purely on taste.

Features of the Award

Taste Above All

Selected purely on taste. Regardless of genre, location, or price, restaurants are chosen for one reason alone: how delicious they are.
Decided by User Votes

Restaurants rated 4.00 or higher on Tabelog are nominated, and awards are determined by the number of user votes.
Nurturing the Future of Food Culture

By creating opportunities for exchange between students studying food and working chefs, the award helps pass knowledge and passion on to the next generation.

From Nomination to Award

From more than 890,000 restaurants across Japan, eligible restaurants are nominated based on their Tabelog scores.
Final award recipients are then determined through voting by Tabelog users.

NominationsEarly November 2024
– Late October 2025
User votingEarly to Mid-November 2025
Award CeremonyLate January 2026

Restaurants that recorded a Tabelog score of 4.00 or higher for a qualifying period during the year are selected as nominees.

— Less than 0.1% of all restaurants listed on Tabelog —

* Restaurants are nominated if they recorded a Tabelog score exceeding 4.00 on at least two separate update dates during the target period (November 5, 2024 – October 21, 2025).* Restaurants in certain categories that do not primarily offer dine-in service, as well as restaurants whose operating status cannot be confirmed on Tabelog, are excluded from the nomination process.* All restaurants that meet the above criteria during the relevant period are nominated regardless of their listing status on Tabelog at the time of the award announcement.

From among the nominated restaurants, Tabelog users who have actually visited the restaurants vote for those they consider the most delicious.

Based on the total number of votes received, Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Category Awards are announced.

— The award ceremony is held in late January —

Awards

Restaurants worth visiting for a lifetime, no matter the location.
An encounter with the mastery of culinary arts that must be experienced to believe.
Essential destinations for fine cuisine enthusiasts.

Category Awards

The top 10 restaurants that received the most votes from users*²among those being nominated for the first time since awards began in 2016.*¹

Check the award-winning
restaurants
The restaurant in each regional block*⁴receiving the highest number of user votes*⁵for offering a deep culinary experience of the local terroir and culture (limited to restaurants outside major metropolitan areas*³)

Check the award-winning
restaurants
Restaurants that The Tabelog Award nominated chefs have personally voted as restaurants they would passionately endorse for a lifetime, no matter where in Japan it is located.*⁶

Check the award-winning
restaurants

Past award recipients

*1 The first awards were held in 2016, under the name "Japan Restaurant Award".
*2 In the case of multiple restaurants with the same number of winning votes, the number of awardees may exceed 10.
*3 Metropolitan areas nationwide are excluded, namely those restaurants located in:
All of Tokyo prefecture (excluding outlying islands), Sapporo city, Sendai city, Saitama city, Chiba city, Yokohama city, Kawasaki city,
Sagamihara city, Niigata city, Shizuoka city, Hamamatsu city, Nagoya city, Kyoto city, Osaka city, Sakai city, Kobe city, Okayama city, Hiroshima city, Kitakyushu city, Fukuoka city, and Kumamoto city.
*4 Hokkaido & Tohoku block: Hokkaido, Aomori, Akita, Yamagata, Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima
Kanto block: Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Gunma
Chubu block: Aichi, Gifu, Shizuoka, Mie, Niigata, Yamanashi, Nagano, Ishikawa, Toyama, Fukui
Kansai block: Osaka, Hyogo, Kyoto, Shiga, Nara, Wakayama
Chugoku & Shikoku block: Okayama, Hiroshima, Tottori, Shimane, Yamaguchi, Kagawa, Tokushima, Ehime, Kochi
Kyushu & Okinawa block: Fukuoka, Saga, Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Oita, Miyazaki, Kagoshima, Okinawa
*5 In the case of multiple restaurants with the same number of winning votes, the number of awardees may exceed one per block.
*6 Each chef may cast up to six votes. The number of awarded restaurants for this award is determined based on the number of restaurants that received votes and the total number of votes cast.