How Japanese-Italian Food Took Over the World

Tokyo Weekender

5 days ago

As teenagers in the suburbs of Osaka, my friends and I often found ourselves gossiping over steaming plates of spaghetti with soy sauce and crispy margherita pizza at Jolly Pasta. With our bikes parked outside, the squishy pleather booths, repetitive Mediterranean music and colorful painted plates melded into more than just a place to nosh on cheap Italian food — the eatery became a comforting and reliable third space.
courtesy of jolly pasta
Jolly Pasta is just one among many Italian-style family restaurant chains in Japan. Featuring classics such as bolognese and carbonara alongside
wafu
fusion concoctions such as
mentaiko
(pollock roe) pasta, these unpretentious eateries have occupied a cozy nook in the country's casual dining scene for decades. You'll spot an instantly recognizable Saizeriya signboard everywhere, from the bustling streets of Tokyo to middle-of-nowhere neighborhoods.
The prevalence of Japanese-Italian food raises the question of how the genre emerged and remained so popular. In Japan, the blended cuisine is called
itameshi
, combining the words
Itaria
(Italy) and
meshi
(meal). Itameshi is not to be confused with standard Italian fares in Japan, referred to as
Itaria ryori
.
Beyond its presence as a local culinary pillar, itameshi has become a global force over the years, appearing in trendy restaurants across dining capitals of the world, including New York City's
Kimika
, London's
Angelina
and Hong Kong's
Citrino
, to name but a few. So how did this phenomenon come about? And how has it evolved?
List of Contents:
The Evolution of Japanese-Italian Cuisine
Staple Itameshi Dishes
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The Evolution of Japanese-Italian Cuisine
The roots of itameshi date back to the early 20th century, after Western cuisine was introduced in Japan during the Meiji period. It's widely known that the first Italian restaurant in Japan was Italia Ken in Niigata Prefecture, founded by Pietro Migliore in 1881. Italian food, however, did not become mainstream until the postwar US occupation, when military food rations featured items such as spaghetti.
Although itameshi is technically a subgenre of
yoshoku
(Meiji-era originating Western style cuisine, like
omurice
and
hambagu
), it has taken on a life of its own over the decades. 'The combination makes perfect sense,' writes
Grub Street
's Tammie Teclemariam. 'Both cuisines share a dedication to regional ingredients and a mutual respect for seafood, noodles and rice.'
Family Restaurant Skylark Nishi-Kokubunji branch, Tokyo, 1978. ©Kyodo News
In tandem with Japan's growing affluence from the 1960s to the 1980s, Japanese chefs began traveling to Europe to train under foreign connoisseurs, hoping to infuse the country's culinary landscape with new methods and ingredients. At the same time, many Japanese tourists were visiting Europe and returning home with an appetite for Italian dishes. It was only a matter of time before this dual cultural exchange created the perfect storm: the Itameshi Boom of the 80s.
Itameshi classics like spaghetti Napolitan became
kissaten
(traditional coffee shop) staples, and the sky was the limit for Japanese chefs experimenting with local flavors such as shiso, dashi and fish roe in Italian cuisine. The 1991 collapse of Asian economies only heightened the demand for itameshi, as fancier establishments shifted their focus from French food to Italian in favor of more affordable ingredients. Casual chains like Saizeriya subsequently spread far and wide. Thus, the term itameshi was coined.
"Showa spaghetti with meat sauce" ad in Nihon Keizai Shimbun's Shopping Issue, December 1971.
house foods group inc. "sobaghetti" ad, 1975.
Today, the influence of itameshi is abundantly clear, not only within the confines of sophisticated urban restaurants, but across everyday haunts like long-established kissaten, karaoke rooms, family restaurants and even frozen food aisles.
Napolitan Spaghetti at Sepia, a Showa retro café in Shibamata, Tokyo. Courtesy of hanako magazine
Staple Itameshi Dishes
When embarking on your itameshi journey, the first word you need to know is
wafu
, which is a blanket term for anything 'Japanese style.' Many casual Italian restaurants will have a designated section of the menu carved out for wafu pasta, filled with inventions featuring soy sauce, seaweed, shiso, mentaiko, mushrooms and green onion.
By using components like dashi, these dishes achieve deep umami flavors without being too heavy, which is ideal for Japanese palettes. Some chains and restaurants, like
Yomenya Goemon
,
Spajiro
and
Kamakura Pasta
, even make wafu pasta their main focus rather than Italian-leaning flavors.
Shigetada Irie, second-generation head chef of Hotel New Grand. Courtesy of excite news.
Swiss chef Saly Weil and his pupils at Hotel New Grand. courtesy of Brutus magazine.
Napolitan Spaghetti
The most famous itameshi dish, however, is not wafu. It is spaghetti Napolitan, which has no connection to the city of Naples despite its name. Cooked spaghetti is stir-fried in a ketchup-based tomato sauce with ingredients like onions, green peppers and either bacon or sausage, creating a distinct, sweet-tart-umami flavor profile.
Its invention reportedly dates back to 1945, when
Hotel New Grand
in Yokohama served as a residence for United States officers. Head Chef Shigetada Irie, in an attempt to please his new customers with limited supplies, allegedly used sautéed garlic and bacon to enhance a canned tomato puree.
Although the European-trained Irie did not actually use ketchup, the hotel dish became a huge hit and spawned copies by other restaurants, which substituted the affordable condiment for tomato puree. If you'd like to try the original in Yokohama, though, Hotel New Grand still serves Irie's blueprint version, sans ketchup.
courtesy of kabe no ana
Tarako Spaghetti
Love it or hate it, tarako spaghetti is one of the most iconic itameshi creations. In 1967, an unnamed regular walked into a hole-in-the-wall on Shibuya's Dogenzaka street (literally — the restaurant is called
Kabe no Ana
, meaning 'hole in the wall') and made history. He had brought with him a tin of canned caviar and asked if it could be used as a topping. The salty, buttery invention turned out to be delicious, but because the restaurant could not regularly feature such an expensive ingredient, they turned to
tarako
: salted pollack roe.
You can still try this wafu dish at Kabe no Ana, or at most casual Italian restaurants. Tarako spaghetti most often features salted pollack roe, butter, soy sauce and
nori
(seaweed) strips. Sometimes, it's garnished with mushrooms, green onions and whitefish. Mentaiko spaghetti, a popular variation, adds spice to the pollack roe, giving the sauce a pink shade.
Wafu Pizza
While Naples-style pizza at places like
Pizza Studio Tamaki
and
Pizza Strada
have attracted attention in recent years for their puffy crusts and gooey goodness, many Japanese eateries have amazing wafu pizza you need to try. For instance,
L'ombelico
, located in Trunk Hotel Yoyogi Park, offers a Nojiri pie loaded with clams from Hokkaido, garlic and pecorino cheese.
The Pizza Bar on 38th
, a Michelin Bib Gourmand spot in Mandarin Oriental, Tokyo, serves pizza with slices of Wagyu beef.
Ciel Pizza
in Shibuya and
Pizza Marumo
in Ebisu are also great choices. The former serves pies with
shirasu
(baby sardines) and sansho peppers, while the latter uses components like shiitake mushroom puree and
kombu
(kelp) shavings.
If you're in search of something more affordable, check out the good old family restaurants such as Jolly Pasta, Gusto and Saizeriya for dishes like teriyaki chicken pizza and mayonnaise-and-corn pizza.
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