The Spyplane Guide to Osaka, Naoshima, Teshima & more
Cop Noguchi Akari like a king, liberate yourself from "Scale At Any Cost" Mindset, eat the best pizza in Japan, and more intel you won't get anywhere else
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Some people will tell you that, while Tokyo rocks, Osaka is where the real action is at these days. So we knew we had to spend a few nights there during our recent 3-week Japan Recon Mission, after our stints in Tokyo (our new Ultimate Tokyo Guide is here) and Kyoto (our new Ultimate Kyoto Guide is here).
“There’s a place in Osaka you have to hit,” the swaggy gourmand and Big Homie Spyfriend Dan Small of the excellent Bar Part Time told me before the trip. He’d caught wind of a Japanese chef who spent several years living in Sicily, learning to cook traditional Sicilian food at a high level, then came home to open a smacking 8-seat Italian restaurant in Osaka.
The Japanese do Italian food as superbly as they do American workwear, so my ears perked up. You have to DM the very friendly chef on IG to request a reservation. When I did, he gave me the address, noting, “I removed my restaurant’s name from Google Maps” — indeed, a cold search for, e.g., “restaurant” in the neighborhood turns up nothing.
This Stealth-Mode Approach reflects an inspiring, quintessentially Japanese mindset — very different from the American mentality whereby you should “scale at all costs.” In Japan, restaurateurs and bar owners often want to keep their operations small. On a given night, there might be only 6 filled seats, and 4 empty ones, but they’ll still turn away walk-ins, because they just want to serve six people carefully and attentively — or they want to keep seats free in case regulars come by.
“They’re not opening these places because they want to get rich,” writer, kissa expert and 20+ year Tokyo resident Craig Mod told us. “They just want to do something they love, for a clientele of regulars who’ll appreciate what they do for years. Letting a bunch of other people walk in and take seats from those regulars is at cross purposes with the dream.”
It’s a beautiful way to approach your life’s work — especially if you live in a place with universal healthcare and rents normal people can pay!!
The Osaka Sicilian spot served up one of our Top 3 meals of the whole trip. And then the chef tipped us off to his favorite pizza in Osaka, we ate it the next night, and it was cranking on an unanticipated level — the most delicious margherita pie we ate in the whole country. We’re still kicking ourselves we didn’t make it to the elusive master-grade pizza truck we put in our Tokyo Guide, so this was immense consolation.
Today we’re psyched to unveil our Spyplane Osaka Guide 2025, featuring a tight clutch of intel on this under-the-radar Sicilian restaurant, that banging pizza, and more great food; excellent shops for new & vintage clothes, including the three best stores I found to cop hard-to-find Comoli and A. Presse pieces; a vast vintage Yohji Yamamoto and Comme des Garçons plug; and more….
We’ve also got:
An elite dispatch from a lovely visit to the nearby “denim capital” of Japan, Kojima.
Reports on the nearby “art islands” of Naoshima and Teshima, which we’ve long been skeptical about, because we heard conflicting reports of their dopeness vs. their cookedness.
Our trick to unlocking Naoshima / Teshima enjoyment, which was staying on a different beautiful island far fewer people talk about, which features…
Some of the best udon on the planet, a glorious garden, and💡 the best place on earth to cop Noguchi Akari lights — for ~half what they cost 💡in the U.S., to boot.
We’re grateful to ourselves for being great at recon, and we’re grateful to the illustrious Spyfriends whose recommendations helped make this trip to Japan our most satisfying yet, including:
Ryota and Joshua from Auralee, Yuji from Ernie Palo, Shinya from Maidens, Dan from James Coward, Toshi from Cottle, writer, photographer, kissa expert and 20+ year Tokyo resident Craig Mod, Oliver Church, Keith from Henry’s, Alex from A. Presse, Evan Kinori, Akari Tachibana, Dan from Bar Part Time, Ezra Koenig, Chelsea Jones, Adam Wray, Robin at Heath Ceramics, Nur from Gnuhr, Natsuko from Goldwin 0, and all the tied-in locals who blessed us with gems along the way.Of course we have to shout out the Osaka thread in our Global Intel Travel Chat, too.
Enjoy!
— Jonah & Erin