Aisunao

I was looking for a vegetarian-friendly spot on TripAdvisor as I was spending the night on beautiful Naoshima and stumbled across Aisunao. Located in an old house, this charming vegan restaurant offers a filling set lunch made with germinated brown rice, a hearty miso soup, and various preparations of vegetables including tomatoes, eggplant, burdock root, sweet potato, radish, and various kinds of pickles. As this is an 80-year-old house, it features tatami seating in several rooms, each with a unique character. They also offer vegan cakes and a variety of beverages, I tried the Yuzu sake on the rocks, and it was amazing! I have had Japanese temple food around Japan, and this is easily some of the most delicious I have had! Please note if you are looking for true vegan temple cuisine, this uses onions, which are not traditional in 精進料理. Many of the guests the day I visited were Taiwanese, many of whom are also Buddhist vegetarians.

Delicious vegan food. You could only order a set menu but we were pretty happy with it. Just sad that we got here too late so couldn’t try their cake desserts but we had the red bean dessert which was delicious too. Will come back in the future

Very friendly. Delicious and well presented food. Sat in tatami mats in a traditional Japanese restaurant.

Very touristy, only one meal available which you have to choose at the entry and even then they forgot to bring our food. Group next to us had to wait very long to pay and their table stayed unclean even after they had left long ago. After waiting for ages until the coffee we ordered was ready we had to stand up and leave for our museum reservation. Here the owner was very unfriendly, he refused to acknowledge the bad service he had provided and even wanted us to pay for the filter coffee he had just made after making us wait so long. First and only bad experience in Japan.

Hip place with locally grown foods that complimented the artsy-ness of the island. The brown rice is grown locally and fermented for a few days to become macrobiotic. It was very tasty and I wouldn’t have known it was fermented if not for the sign. Our miso soup was a unique regional brew. Regional sides also included sweet beans and candied seaweed. Lastly, we ordered the olive soda made from olives grown at a nearby island. We were both very full by the end of our meal with the medium-sized rice, despite skipping breakfast before lunch. Local artists sold their crafts at this store, which could make for good unique souvenirs. The owners were committed to sustainability and encouraged customers to leave their naoshima maps in a corner for the store for others to reuse.

We're carnivores and we LOVED this vegan food! So many wonderful tastes. Lovely atmosphere. We enjoyed meeting other people from around the world at the shared table.

This vegetarian restaurant in Honmura on Naoshima Island is great and I’m a carnivore. It’s possibly the only vegetarian restaurant in the island. I didn’t see any others. It’s very popular so be prepared to wait. We arrived later in the day (2pm) and still had to wait (15-20minutes) and I was getting hangry. Glad I persevered though because the food was delicious! If I remember rightly we got to choose between 2 options. The restaurant is housed in an old building and you have to remove your shoes before entering the seating area. They also have a little corner where they sell Knick knacks. Definitely recommend as a place to eat even if you’re not a vegetarian.

Delicious vegan lunch menu set for only 1000yens. We came around 11:30 without reservation. Loved the aged organic brown rice.