Honke Shibato

Visited August 2025. This was my favorite meal to eat in all of Japan!! Unagi, it's Japanese Grilled Eel with Tare Sauce & Rice with Miso Soup & Pickled Vegetables. They gave Cold Green Tea as a drink as well. This meal was out of this world, such delicious food!! Ordered the Unaju Mamushi Box, it comes in 3 sizes. Small, Medium & Large. The Medium was just enough to fill me up. Loaded with lots of eel, rice & generous amounts of the Tare Sauce, it's a must-try dish worth having in Japan. The service was impeccable, & the lady who appeared to be the manager/owner even took our pictures in the front of the restaurant as well! We had Unagi in Tokyo as well, but this Unagi in Osaka was by far the best. Savored every bite of this eel meal!! The best in Japanese food is this.

This restaurant, with its 300-year history, completely change my perception of politeness in Japanese culture…unfortunately not in a good way. I usually avoid visiting overseas restaurants rated below 4.4, but after watching a YouTube review, I decided to give this one a try even thought it was rated 4.3 on Google. We arrived at around 12:50pm and were asked to wait. After a while, a staff member told us to take the elevator, but suddenly changed her mind and asked us to sit again so she could let other Japanese customers go first. We quietly waited as more customers were led inside. When we asked why we have to keep waiting, she said it was because we had a “perfume smell,” and therefore would not be seated. My wife explained she hadn’t worn perfume…perhaps a faint scent came from her shampoo that morning. Still, the staff insisted we must wait “until there are no other customers in the restaurant.” That response sounded absurd, rude, and unreasonable. After I pointed that out, she reluctantly said we could sit in the Tatami room instead of the room with tables and chairs. We accepted, though it felt unfair especially since all non-Japanese guests seemed to be placed in the Tatami room while Japanese guests were seated in the main area. Putting our frustration aside, the Unagi itself was underwhelming, bland, ordinary and far from worth the trouble. It seems the recipe hasn’t changed in 300 years and perhaps neither has their outdated attitude towards guests who “smell good.” It’s also difficult to imagine that, people would find a hint of perfume offensive and unacceptable in a public restaurant. In conclusion, there are many other places in Osaka that serve far better Unagi with warmth, respect and genuine hospitality. I would not recommend wasting your time or money here.

We were looking for places to have a late lunch after visiting Osaka Castle on a hot day. When I did some research prior to visiting Osaka, Honke Shibato 本家 柴藤 was highly recommended. They have been around for about 300 years and 13 generations. If you are looking for Osaka style unagi don, hitsumabushi, or other styles of unagi don, this place offers them in Japanese or English menus along with instructions on how to eat hitsumabushi. While you may have to wait during busy lunch time, when my group visited here after 2 PM we did not have to wait at all. I had a few friends visiting from overseas, who had never tried Japanese grilled eel before. But they all loved the texture, flavor, and atmosphere, and could not stop talking about this place during our trip to Osaka. The eels were soft, gentle yet flavorful. If it is your first time trying this type of dish, I would recommend the hitsumabushi (called hitsumaMUshi here) style! It is not only delicious, but also quite enjoyable to discover different eating methods that suit your palate. There are many other Japanese grilled eel places in Osaka that are amazing; however, if you are nearby, I think this place would be certainly worth visiting. Just FYI, I believe they are a cash only business. They also close at 5:00 PM for the day and are closed for Sunday/Monday.

What can I say other than it was some of the best unagi I have ever eaten. So delicious, tender and the sauce so light yet flavorful. I had the set you eat in a certain way and loved every bite. I also ordered the eel wrapped in egg, another treat I recommend ordering. Thank you so much for a wonderful meal and see you next time! Very friendly and welcoming staff as well.

Since I am not a Japanese , I can’t tell if they are 100% authentic unagi but I feel they are . A very special thing is they have unagi embedded inside the “lower deck” of the rice , I don’t see this so often nowadays . I should probably come again if I am nearby .

Well-crafted dish, well-deserved to wait for cooking. Love the eel liver soup; very refreshing. Service is also great. Suggest you come for the freshly made grilled eel on top of rice when visiting Osaka!

Our lunch at Honke Shibato was truly amazing! To start, the restaurant is conveniently located in an area of Osaka where taxis and other methods of transportation are easily available. When you enter the restaurant, you are greeted by kind staff that will do their best to help you and will do their best to translate information into your preferred language. This continues for the entire dining experience as the staff continue to assist with ordering and more. As for the atmosphere of the restaurant, it should be noted that the dining environment is a more of a traditional itami style seating, but the food easily makes up for that should you believe that that may not be your preferred seating choice. The restaurant is very clean and the staff also take dust prevention measures such as requiring guests to take off their jacket before entering the restaurant to further prevent the spread of dust into the environment. Lastly for the food, every item on the menu is spectacular. We ate a variety of side dishes as well as the main eel rice box. All were very delicious and clearly displayed the special flavours of eel. My personal favourite was the Japanese egg omelette as well as the eel rice box. Overall, I highly recommend you trying this traditional Japanese eel restaurant as the entire experience is amazing!

The Unagi at Honke Shibato stood out for its crispy texture, but otherwise, it wasn’t very different from standard Unagi. The flavor, rice, condiments, and presentation were all good, but not remarkable enough to justify the high price. The service was fantastic, with attentive and professional staff, but overall, I felt my expectations weren’t fully met. It was a pleasant experience, but not one I’d rush to repeat.

Eater listed this as an essential Osaka restaurant and my partner and I really enjoy unagi, so I made it a priority to come here. So many of the other spots on their essential list had really long waits, so we anticipated one here but it was relatively empty for Tuesday lunch. When we saw the steep price point, we realized why. 7500 yen (abut 50 bucks) for some eel over rice is not only much more than I'd spend for lunch in Japan, but in New York too, which is saying something. Given they claim to have invented the unagi preparation we've all come to know and love and have been cooking it for 300+ years, I had high hopes. The food was quite good, definitely made with care and intention. Was it 50 bucks good? Probably not, but I'm glad to have satisfied my curiosity. The vibe is very severe. There are multiple signs in the elevator and space in English and Japanese warning you against wearing strong perfumes, that if you do that may ask you to leave. Though there were other diners in the space, it was so quiet you could hear everyone shifting in their seats. There was also no music playing. I suppose they really want you to focus on the flavor of the food, but I found it overly serious for what I was in the mood for. I wanted to rush out of there. Ultimately the food is tasty enough but I would not return for more.

Great service as is almost always the case in Japan. The eel here made up for a previous less than tasty experience at another eel restaurant in Kyoto. Maybe that's due to the fact that they been cooking up eel for over 300 years. The omelette with eel was great. But the eel over sauces rice was phenomenal. Also loved the fried eel vertebrae snap that they send to the table first. Super crunchy and fun to eat. The restaurant does not show its age as it is modern, which is a shame. Would have been even better with an old school feel.

Honke Shibato's unagi is one of those "must-try-at-least-once" kinds of things, along the same vein as Kobe beef and ramen. Sure, you could probably get it anywhere in Japan but wouldn't it be best to try it the way the pros make it? And with a 300-year-old legacy, you know Honke Shibato is one of the pros. It's with this mindset that we ventured out to try them. We arrived early and didn't have to wait at all. Three women warmly greeted us and made us feel at home right away. They shuffled us in and one of them escorted us up in an escalator into a warm room. Before we stepped in, she asked us to take off our shoes and we entered a cozy room with low-set tables. It reminded me of a traditional household I'd see in anime and whatnot. It was also the first time in our trip that we experienced anything like it. We ordered the Osaka-Mamushi set and a separate order of umaki. The waitress never left the room, despite the kitchen being somewhere else in the building, and was very attentive the entire time. While we did have to wait for a bit, she always kept us updated and made sure our cups of tea were never empty. Eventually, our food came and it was delicious! The eel in the Osaka-Mamushi set was crispy on the outside, and soft inside - something I've never experienced outside of this restaurant. You could tell that it was cooked with care (and potentially over a grill?). Although the sauce on top was thinner than most restaurants, it was not any less flavourful. The umaki was good as well but it paled in comparison to the Osaka-Mamushi set - mostly because you could barely taste the eel in it. Overall, it was a delicious meal and a terrific experience. That being said, it feels like another one of those things that you go to just the once to say that you've tried it. There's a minimum ¥ amount that you must order (unfortunately, I don't quite remember the amount at this point) and each item on the menu is quite pricey. While the unagi was very good and did have a characteristic that I haven't found elsewhere (i.e. crispy outside, soft inside), that characteristic is also not that crucial to my enjoyment of the dish. Perhaps I'm just not an unagi connoisseur - I can appreciate the difference but I personally don't feel like it warrants that steep of a price hike. Personally, I'm glad to have experienced it and would recommend you going for the experience. But if you are like me - not a unagi connoisseur - and looking for something more cost-effective, maybe try somewhere else...