Kure Taishomachi Market

Kure Taishomachi Market is the kind of Kochi food stop that locals recommend before any restaurant with a sign in English.

Kure is a bonito port and this market, a covered lane a hundred metres long a couple of minutes from the harbour, is where the boats' catch is sold. It has been running for over a century and is small — a dozen or so stalls — but it is a real fishermen's market rather than a visitor attraction, and the bonito is pole-and-line caught, which in Kochi is a distinction people take seriously.

What makes it worth stopping is that you can eat it there. Several stalls will cut and sear a katsuo tataki in front of you, and there is a rice-and-bowl counter where you buy a bowl of rice and take it round the stalls to have things put on it. Bonito is at its best in spring and again in autumn. The market closes when the sea has been too rough to fish.