Utsunomiya: Tochigi’s Hidden Gem

We all want to discover a little of the real Japan during our visit, and as breathtaking as the urban metropolis of Tokyo might be, sometimes we long for something a little removed from the noise and crowds of the big city. So where should you go to escape Tokyo? Spend a little time researching, and you’ll find many recommendations for the city of Nikko—a destination in Tochigi Prefecture, north of Tokyo, known for its beautiful historic shrines and temples. But these days, even Nikko can be surprisingly crowded with fellow travelers looking to take in the views. When you want a taste of authentic Japan, we recommend spending a night between Tokyo and Nikko, in another Tochigi city: Utsunomiya.

Known for mouth-watering gyoza, sightseeing spots created through a combination of natural forces and human hands, and a refreshing lack of overtourism, Utsunomiya is one of the Japankuru team’s favorite hidden gems near Tokyo. Join us on our recent trip to Utsunomiya to check out our easy overnight guide, and find out why we think this incredible city is completely underappreciated!

A Convenient Stop North of Tokyo

Utsunomiya feels like one of Japan’s best-kept secrets, off the beaten path trodden by most travelers, but it’s actually shockingly accessible. Hop on the Tohoku Shinkansen, and Utsunomiya is only 48 minutes from Tokyo Station! After a relaxing overnight stay in Utsunomiya, it’s less than 45 minutes on to Nikko, and a little further to other Tochigi destinations like Mashiko, Ashikaga, and Nasu. Or, you can get back on the shinkansen to head up north towards Sendai and the rest of the Tohoku region. Add Utsunomiya to your schedule, and enjoy a convenient breath of fresh air in the midst of a busy travel schedule!

Our Up-to-Date Utsunomiya Travel Guide: Overnight in Utsunomiya

How to Get to Utsunomiya From Tokyo

As mentioned above, the trip from Tokyo Station to Utsunomiya Station can be accomplished with a quick trip on the Tohoku Shinkansen, usually about 48 minutes—less time than it often takes to get from one side of Tokyo to another—and around 5,000 yen per person. If you’re looking to save some money on transportation, you can take local trains instead. The “Utsunomiya Line” will take you on the same route, direct from Tokyo Station to Utsunomiya, for half the price (just over 2,000 yen), but it does take twice as much time (about 2 hours). The choice just depends on your travel preferences—either way, you’ll be arriving at Utsunomiya Station before you know it!

Start With an Early Lunch of Utsunomiya Gyoza

When you’re hungry to explore a new place, there’s no better method than using your taste buds! In Japan, Utsunomiya is known as a city of gyoza, and the city is absolutely packed with shops specializing in these delicious dumplings. But with so many gyoza shops, choosing one to visit can be a real challenge. Many travelers end up on the city’s “Gyoza Street,” a city street decked out in gyoza street lamps and gyoza murals, with a handful of different restaurants. But we say “why choose if you don’t have to?”

Nearby, you’ll find Kirasse, a gyoza food court organized by the Utsunomiya Gyoza Association. There are two zones, which you have to choose between when you arrive. The “Permanent Zone” has counters serving up gyoza from 5 of the city’s most popular gyoza shops, with a wide selection featuring all kinds of unique fillings and fun toppings. The other zone’s offerings change on a daily basis, as chefs prepare a rotating selection of signature gyoza from other popular Utsunomiya gyoza shops. The Japankuru team visited the Permanent Zone so we could try fun options like wagyu gyoza, crispy shrimp gyoza, and okonomiyaki gyoza covered in okonomiyaki sauce and katsuobushi. After a quick gyoza lunch, you’ll be ready to see what sights Utsunomiya has to offer.

Utsunomiya Gyoza Street (餃子通り)
Utsunomiya, Tochigi

Kirasse (来らっせ 本店)
Mega Don Quijote B1F, 2-3-12 Babadori, Utsunomiya, Tochigi
Hours: weekdays 11:00 – 20:30 | weekends 11:00 – 21:00
Official Website (jp)

Drop Off Your Luggage at Utsunomiya Tobu Hotel Grande

For a quick trip like this, the last thing you want to waste time on is heading to a distant hotel, which is why we recommend Utsunomiya Tobu Hotel Grande. Not only is it a 5-minute walk from Kirasse, but it’s conveniently located 5 minutes on foot from Tobu Utsunomiya Station, or about 5 minutes by bus from JR Utsunomiya Station. It’s also along the same bus routes as Utsunomiya’s major sightseeing destinations, and an easy walk from most popular sights in the city center. At this point in the day it’s probably too early to check in, but you can leave big suitcases and heavy bags at the hotel, and enjoy the rest of your day in Utsunomiya unburdened!

Utsunomiya Tobu Hotel Grande (宇都宮東武ホテルグランデ)
5-12 Honcho, Utsunomiya, Tochigi
Check-in/Check-out: 14:00 / 11:00
Official Website (en)

Utsunomiya Sightseeing: Spend the Afternoon Immersed in Utsunomiya Nature

Utsunomiya’s most famous sightseeing spot is one of the most surprising attractions we’ve found in Japan. Take a bus into the mountainside outside Utsunomiya’s urban center, and you’ll find the massive caverns of the Oya History Museum—the former Oya Stone Mine. Once an active mine, visitors can now venture under the earth to explore the museum’s mysterious gloom, traipsing through a network of enormous rooms carved out of the rock. The scale itself is breathtaking, but you’ll also find art exhibitions, historical displays, and all kinds of fun lighting to frame your most unusual photo shoot in Japan. (The caves are actually a popular filming location for music videos and films.)

Oya History Museum (大谷資料館)
909 Oyamachi, Utsunomiya, Tochigi
Hours: 9:00 – 16:30
Official Website (en)

When you’re ready for some fresh air, head over to the nearby Wakayama Farm, home to a bamboo grove that could blow Kyoto out of the water any day of the week. (There’s no direct bus route from the Oya History Museum, so we recommend calling a taxi for the quick ride.) The Four Seasons Bamboo Forest is quiet, peaceful, and absolutely brimming with bamboo of all different colors, sizes, and shapes, growing in huge groves that look dense enough to get lost in. Just strolling along the broad dirt roads and slipping between the sturdy green stalks is a pleasure, but the farm’s massive bamboo swing is also fun for visitors young and old, and after sunset, carved bamboo lanterns are used to illuminate the paths for an experience that verges on magical.

Wakayama Farm: Four Seasons Bamboo Forest (若竹の杜 若山農場)
2018 Takaragihoncho, Utsunomiya, Tochigi
Hours: weekdays 9:00 – 17:00 | weekends 9:00 – 20:00
Official Website (en)

Check In at the Hotel

Head back into the heart of Utsunomiya to check in for the evening using the convenient automated check-in machines at Utsunomiya Tobu Hotel Grande. The city-center hotel is a hub for sightseers, conference-goers, wedding parties, and all kinds of other travelers, with multiple popular restaurants on the lower floors, a variety of different guestrooms upstairs, and banquet halls in between. After an afternoon on your feet exploring Utsunomiya, Utsunomiya Tobu Hotel Grande is a relaxing home base to return to.

From singles to twins and doubles, basic features to premium facilities, and even a selection of sprawling suites and connecting rooms for up to 4 people, Utsunomiya Tobu Hotel Grande has a good variety of guest rooms to fit whatever you and your fellow travelers might be looking for. For solo travelers or couples, the Comfort Double is a solid choice, with its queen-sized bed, convenient desk space, and recently renovated interiors. For families and other groups of up to four, the “Grande Fourth” room is a practical choice—two connected bedrooms with a total of four beds (2 singles + 2 semi-doubles), and an ensuite divided into separate toilet, shower, and sink spaces for convenience. If you’re ready to treat yourself to a truly relaxing evening, then choose a suite and enjoy the elegant living room, the huge semi-king-sized bed, and the newly renovated marble-tiled bathroom.

All of the rooms are equipped with smart TVs (so you can check how busy the breakfast buffet is, or connect to your Netflix account and watch your favorite shows at night), and the double and twin bathrooms have shower heads produced by the beauty brand ReFa, designed to gently cleanse and hydrate your skin—so you feel fresh and ready to enjoy the rest of your trip.

Indulge in Tochigi Wagyu Beef at Ren

In Japan, hotel restaurants are often fine dining establishments that attract a clientele far beyond the overnight guests, and Utsunomiya Tobu Hotel Grande has four different eateries on site, making it the perfect place for a relaxing dinner. Cafe & Restaurant Oasis is casual, offering a breakfast buffet and lunch, while Teppanyaki Shimotsuke is more high-end, serving up expertly seared cuts of Tochigi wagyu beef and fresh seafood. The Chinese restaurant Chikuen serves Sichuan and Cantonese cuisine, and if you prefer gourmet gyoza to the casual fare usually eaten in Utsunomiya, then you’ll find them here. In the end, however, the Japankuru team chose to reserve a table at Ren, a Japanese restaurant specializing in traditional hot-pot and kaiseki cuisine.

Our dinner was the Sukiyaki Kaiseki, a decadent multi-course meal of traditional appetizers made with local ingredients followed by richly marbled Tochigi Wagyu beef. The meal started with a series of tantalizing small bites, including aromatic sesame tofu, crispy tempura, and fresh sashimi. When the main course arrived on the table, we were taken aback by the heaping platter of fresh vegetables, and the generous pillows of thin-cut wagyu beef. Our waitress carefully seasoned the pot and cooked the very first slice of beef, giving the meat a hint of color before giving it a chance to simmer in the sweet sukiyaki sauce, creating the perfect bite of sukiyaki. By the time the udon noodles arrived on the table to soak up the last of the flavorful sauce, we were full to the bursting, but the bouncy hand-cut texture was impossible to resist. Good thing there’s always room for dessert—the fruity sherbet was the perfect way to end the meal.

Ren (簾)
Utsunomiya Tobu Hotel Grande 2F
Hours: lunch 11:30 – 15:00 (last order 14:30) | dinner 17:00 – 21:00 (last order 20:30) | closed Sunday dinner and Monday all day
Official Website (en)

Finish the Evening With Utsunomiya’s Custom Cocktails

Utsunomiya, it turns out, is known for one more surprising thing, and that’s nightlife! The narrow streets in the city’s center are dotted with big noisy bars, jazz clubs, entertainment-focused flair bartending spots, and tiny holes in the wall serving up some of the best drinks you’ve had in your entire life. Even if you’re stuffed from dinner, we sincerely recommend waddling around the corner from the hotel to enjoy a nightcap at Bar Aiba.

The cozy space has a dark wooden counter with half a dozen seats, shelves crowded with close to 500 different bottles, and one extremely talented bartender committed to making you the perfect drink. When the Japankuru team visited, Aiba’s bartending “Master” took the time to chat with each of us about our drink preferences, and used those conversations to help us each find cocktails that each of us truly enjoyed. Results included a Moscow mule jazzed up with a homemade ginger infusion, a luxurious blended ice drink featuring pistachio cream, and a beautiful espresso martini made using the espresso machine behind the counter. Between the unique atmosphere, the attentive service, and the drinks themselves, Bar Aiba delivers the kind of experience you’ll treasure for the rest of your life.

Bar Aiba (BAR 相葉)
2-15 Izumicho, Utsunomiya, Tochigi
Hours: 17:00 – 1:00 am | nights before holidays 17:00 – 2:00 am | closed Sundays & the 1st Monday of the month
Official Website (jp)

Wake Up to a Tochigi Breakfast Buffet

After a restful night high above Utsunomiya, you can head down to the ground floor to check out Utsunomiya Tobu Hotel Grande’s breakfast buffet. The counters are full of both Japanese and Western-style breakfast dishes, from French toast to fish and miso soup, but the real highlight is all the local Tochigi ingredients used throughout. The buffet includes premium “Sharimanten” rice, cultivated in the mountains of Nikko, and milk from Senbonmatsu Farm. Nasu Goyoran eggs are used for dishes like the freshly prepared omelettes, made-to-order with meat and vegetables of your choice. There are even some local dishes, like simmered “shimotsukare” (salmon, vegetables, soy beans, sake lees) and Utsunomiya gyoza, and enough options to leave just about any traveler full and ready to hit the road!

Enjoy One Last Excursion to Futaarayama Shrine

Just down the street from the hotel, on the way to the JR station, Futaarayama Shrine rests at the top of a steep flight of stairs—just the thing to get your blood pumping in the morning! It’s worth the short trek to see the shrine, however, and admire this local landmark from the 9th century. Don’t forget to pick a gyoza-shaped omikuji fortune before you leave, to find out what your luck will be for the rest of your travels in Japan!

Utsunomiya Futaarayama Shrine (宇都宮二荒山神社)
1-1-1 Babadori, Utsunomiya, Tochigi
Hours: 6:00 – 18:00
Official Website (en)

Enjoy a Night in Utsunomiya Before Your Next Destination in Northern Japan!

Utsunomiya offers easy access from Tokyo, fabulous local food, spectacular natural attractions shaped by local history, and far fewer crowds than Japan’s better-known destinations, making it well worth adding an overnight stop in this unique city to your travel itinerary. Whether you continue on to Nikko, travel farther north, or decide to make it a quick trip and head back to Tokyo, it only takes one night in Utsunomiya to leave you with unforgettable memories of a new side of Japan!

▶︎ More on Nikko

▶︎ More on Tochigi

▶︎ More on the Tohoku Region

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