Food & Drink

A Visual Tour of Nakatsu, The Mecca of Japanese Fried Chicken

There are more karaage (fried chicken) shops in Nakatsu on Kyushu than there are schools and convenience stores

The soul food of Nakatsu City, karaage, is deep-fried to order.

Home to the Fried Chicken Grand Prix, Nakatsu on the northern border of Ōita Prefecture on Kyushu is famous for its karaage, Japanese-style fried chicken. Home to about 40 karaage, Nakatsu has more chicken shops than schools (elementary, junior high and high school combined) and convenience stores. What follows are photos of Nakatsu’s many karaage shops and their wares, with footnotes from Ryousuke Kubo of the Nakatsu Yabakei Tourism Association, as told to InsideHook.

The soul food of Nakatsu, karaage is chicken deep-fried to order and is thus full of juiciness and flavor. Karaage is flavored from the batter right through to the meat center. The batter is also thin, which brings out the true umami of the meat.

The taste of Nakatsu karaage varies from shop to shop, but they have devised ways to make it delicious even when cold. Each restaurant conducts its own research to develop its own unique taste.

They use only fresh raw chicken, and using chicken from Japan is a must. The chicken is seasoned with soy sauce-based or salt-based sauce with more than a dozen different seasonings, such as garlic and ginger. You can enjoy various parts of the chicken such as bone-in, boneless, breast, thigh, wing tips, chicken wings, gizzard and cartilage.

With more than 40 karaage shops in the city, the Japan Fried Chicken Association recognizes Nakatsu in Oita Prefecture as the holy land/mecca of fried chicken. The chicken is served at important ceremonies like weddings, funerals and coming-of-age celebrations.

The Nakatsu Karaage Festival is held every year in and outside of the city to promote Nakatsu’s karaage. The chicken and the culture around it attract attention from local media, and its popularity owes in part to continuous publicity.

There is also the The Karaage Grand Prix, a food event held in Japan since 2011. Many shops and restaurants enter every year, hoping to be voted Japan’s best karaage.

The categories are grouped depending on the part of the chicken and the seasoning that is used. Several restaurants are selected for a gold award in each category and the highest gold award is given to a particularly outstanding restaurant.

There are 11 categories:

1. Deep-fried and half-deep fried section
2. East Japan soy sauce division
3. Central Japan soy sauce division
4. West Japan soy sauce division
5. Salt sauce division
6. Chicken wing division
7. East Japan division
8. Central Japan division
9. West Japan division
10. Ingredient Category
11. Chicken Nanban (karaage with a rich tartar sauce) division

Competition for awards is steep. During the last competition, there were 921 entries from across the country. Of those, only 121 earned Gold Awards, and among them, only 14 received the Highest Gold Award.

If you were to look for definitive winners, then the Highest Gold Award is the sticker to look out for. A total of 228,388 votes were cast. They also have a certification for karaage experts (“Karaagenisst”) which can be completed online.