An appetite for Gifu

From Hida beef to chargrilled eel and chestnut cakes … this Japanese prefecture is heaven on a stick

Eating Japanese food is one of the main reasons Australians visit Japan. It’s up there with the timeless elegance of Samurai castles, historic towns, nature’s awesome show, unique experiences and thriving culture.

And while sushi, sashimi, teppanyaki, yakitori, tempura, okonomiyaki and ramen are at the top of most visitors’ to-try list – not to mention the pricey Matsutake mushroom – it is the under-the-radar prefectures like Gifu that steal the show with their memorable specialties.

Gifu is a large, landlocked prefecture in the centre of Honshu, Japan’s main island. It’s dominated by mountains on three sides, but in the south, the alluvial Nōbi Plain is fed by the Nagara, ibi, and Kiso rivers.

Fertile land, clear water, and unique ingredients make Gifu’s larder remarkable.

Hida beef, from Gifu’s north, is one of Japan’s top beef brands. It’s the name given to beef from a black-haired Japanese cattle breed that has been raised in Gifu Prefecture for at least 14 months. Intensely marbled, this Japanese wagyu is slightly sweet with a melt-in-the-mouth texture. Hida beef turns up as the hotpot shabu-shabu, as sukiyaki and as a grilled steak.

We sample it in the quaint town of Takayama at a restaurant called Aji-no-Yohei. Strips of Hida beef to charcoal on a personal grill arrive on a tray along with a variety of pickles including the local red turnip pickle, soy and miso sauces, tofu and egg custard.

Ayu sweetfish is Gifu’s prefectural fish. It’s a small, slim fish found in extremely clean water. It has a pleasant texture, a strong umami taste and an aroma often likened to cucumber or melon. Eat them salted and grilled whole over charcoal, deep-fried, stewed in a sweet miso sauce, or as a tempura snack.

We find ayu on menus of smart restaurants and cafés in the Kawara-machi district alongside the Nagara River.

In hotels and souvenir shops, they pop up as ayu-gashiorwaka-ayu, fish-shaped treats made by wrapping a layer of castella cake around a soft paste made from sticky rice.

Kei-chan is a popular restaurant dish in Gifu, especially in Gujo City, Gero City, and southern Takayama City. Chicken, cabbage, bean sprouts, seasonal vegetables – and maybe a dash of sake – are tossed through with a special sauce and grilled on a griddle or in a Genghis Khan pot, which is a ridged, convex, cast-iron pan.

Electrifying eel

In the heart of Gifu, Gujo Hachiman has a wide range of eateries including soba and ramen restaurants, and others specialising in ayu, unagi (grilled freshwater eel), Hida beef, and okumino-jidori (home-grown chicken).

Sumibiyaki Unagi Uotora is a Japanese restaurant in Gujo Hachiman that specialises in eel, or unagi. The restaurant has been open since 1930 and foodies make a beeline for the “hitsumabushi”, a dish of char-grilled eel served in a wooden bowl, atop rice thick with a sauce made from sake, sugar, soy sauce and mirin.

In the old days unagi was said to give power and energy to a workforce of blacksmiths and potters. We eat it in three stages, first the rice and eel, then with its array of accompaniments, and finally with a clear fragrant soup with a little surprise in it: a grilled eel liver.

Market town bounty

In Takayama city, in the north of Gifu, there are two lively morning markets.

At the atmospheric Miyagawa market along the Miyagawa River in the centre of the town, 60 shops and stalls open before breakfast. Those on the river side sell vegetables, fruits, pickles and spices while stalls on the other side sell Japanese sweets and crafts. Local souvenirs include sarubobo dolls, red human-shaped dolls traditionally given by mothers to their daughters to bless marriage and babies.

The Jinya-mae market is more than 300 years old. In the beginning it was for silk -growing farmers who sold mulberry tree leaves. For sale are fresh green vegetables, dried foods, and homemade pickles as well as more unusual ingredients such as wild vegetables, stems of potato and carrot leaves.

Pop by Hirata Sake Brewery, a compact brewery whose sake uses local rice and water from the Miyagawa. Take a tour and sample some limited-edition sakes and a luscious low-alcohol mandarin sake liqueur.

Cook with the locals

One way for visitors to experience Gifu culture is by cooking with locals. In Hida-Takayama, in an old two-story wooden townhouse called a machiya, join its occupant Hisa-san (Hisa Ishihara) in preparing dishes with Hida beef, Hida vegetables, and seafood from the Hokuriku region, served on tableware handed down through generations. Chat about architecture and furnishings, table manners and traditional crafts such as lacquerware and pottery.

Takayama is the town Hisa-san grew up in. Her house has been, over centuries, a home, shop, atelier, kimono shop, pharmacy and a maternity clinic run by her father and grandfather who were gynaecologists. Indeed, many people in Takayama were born here.

Post-it notes

The Nakasendo, in Gifu’s east, is an old highway between Tokyo and Kyoto. It’s 534km long and in the older times had 69 post towns (“juku”), where travellers could spend the night.

The 8km Magome-Tsumago section is perhaps the most beautiful, thanks to its broad stone pathways, latticed wooden buildings and delicate gardens. It takes about three hours to stroll it. Your soundtrack will be running water, your temptations sweet treats and savoury snacks.

In one shopfront window buckwheat dough is being prepared with a long, thin rolling pin. Soba noodles are a staple dish of the Nakasendo. Look, too, for gohei-mochi, a round disc of short-grain rice squished on a stick, coated in soy sauce and sugar, miso, walnut, or a sweet nutty sauce then grilled. Oyaki are steamed buns filled with eggplant, pumpkin, mushroom and sweet red beans.

We buy kuri-kinton, dumpling-shaped chestnut cakes individually wrapped; these originate in Nakatsugawa, a city full of wagashi-ya, or Japanese sweet shops. Kurigaki is also irresistible. It’s made with whole dried Ichida persimmon, filled with chestnut puree and presented wrapped in an autumn-coloured persimmon leaf.

Castle Town calling

Iwamura, in Ena District, is an ancient feudal city nestled deep in the Kiso Mountains. Iwamura Castle, 717m above sea, was the residence of “a Lady Lord”, Lady Otsuya, the aunt of Oda Nobunaga.

One of Japan’s three most famous mountain castles, Iwamura Castle was abandoned and dismantled in 1873, and only the stone walls remain.

The nearby castle town is lined with townhouses, many dating from the Edo period, including a 200-year-old sake brewery still in operation.

Iwamura Jozo Brewery was founded in 1787. The ingredients required to make its sakes are rigorously selected: the rice is grown in the region, water from the Kiso River is used, drawn from a well dug 400 years ago. The water is relatively soft and low in calcium, making for a slow fermentation process and a smoother-tasting sake.

Visit the brewery, with its shiny emerald-green fermentation tanks, to witness the sake fermenting and brewing processes and taste several kinds of sake. Watarai-san, the seventh generation owner, will line up a tasting flight. Afterwards, blend your own unique sake from a selection that includes daiginjo sake, a premium sake made with only the best part of the rice. 

Stroll through the streets of the 1.3-kilometer-long castle town while sampling local treats such as gohei-mochi and kankara-mochi, which is a sweetened rice cake with sesame powder, red bean paste, and roasted soybean flour. Stop by Matsuuraken Honten for a cup of green tea and a slice of Gifu’s castella cake, a version of Japanese sponge cake known for its sweet, moist brioche-style flavour and texture.

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