Depachika: Exploring Japan's Department-Store Food Halls

If you want to eat well in Japan without reading a menu or booking a table, go down to the basement of a big department store. There you find the デパ地下 (depachika): a maze of counters where everything is on show, in small portions, and where you can also buy some of the best gifts to take home. This guide explains what it is, what is inside, how to shop, what things roughly cost and which manners to know. Checked on 21 October 2026.

What a depachika is

Depachika is short for デパート (depāto), 'department store' (a word borrowed from English; the formal word is 百貨店, hyakkaten), plus 地下 (chika), 'basement'. Japanese store directories write the basement as 地下1階 (chika ikkai), the first basement level. In plain terms, it is the food floor in the basement of a major department store, typically one or two levels. It is not a supermarket: it is a dense maze of counters, each belonging to a different shop or brand, with staff serving from small spaces and cases full of neatly arranged food. Many Japanese people shop there for dinner on the way home, not only tourists.

What you find

• Prepared dishes, 惣菜 (sōzai, also written お惣菜 or 総菜): ready-made side dishes and deli food such as salads, cooked vegetables, fried chicken, croquettes, tempura, gyōza and much more. They are sold by weight or by the piece.
• 弁当 (bentō): complete boxed meals, from rice with grilled fish to sushi or meat sets, often arranged with great care.
• Specialist counters, for example grilled eel (unagi) and freshly fried tempura.
• A sweets hall with both 和菓子 (wagashi), traditional Japanese sweets, and 洋菓子 (yōgashi), Western-style sweets such as cakes, biscuits and chocolates.
• Bakery counters with the day's bread and pastries.
• Premium fruit, tea, pickles (tsukemono) and regional specialities from around Japan.
• A small eat-in corner in some stores, with only a few seats.

Why it is useful to a traveller

• It is a relaxed way to eat well in your hotel room. You buy a varied meal, carry it upstairs and eat at your own pace. The hall itself is very busy in the early evening, so go earlier if you want space.
• Everything is visible, so you do not need to read a Japanese menu. You point and ask.
• Portions are small, so you can try several dishes instead of committing to one.
• It is one of the best places to buy a gift that will impress someone back home, with careful packaging.
• Some counters offer samples (they became rarer after 2020), so you may be able to taste before you decide.

If you are still planning your food budget, see also cheap food in Japan, Japan's convenience stores and food markets and street food in Japan, which are cheaper and simpler alternatives.

How to shop

• Baskets are rare. If you see some at the entrance you can take one, but most people simply carry what they buy in the bags the counters give them.
• Point at what you want and say ひとつ (hitotsu), 'one'. For more, show your fingers or say ふたつ (futatsu), 'two'.
• At prepared-food counters the price is often per 100 g. Staff weigh the food and tell you the total before packing it.
• In most depachika you pay at each shop's own register, usually the same counter where you ordered. A central till is the exception, so watch what the customers ahead of you do.
• Say if you want it packed for travel: 持ち帰り (mochikaeri) means 'to take away'. If the weather is hot, or you will carry chilled food or sweets for a while, ask for a 保冷剤 (horeizai), an ice pack. It is often free, but it may be limited by how long you will be travelling, or charged.
• Ask, or notice, by when you should eat it. Many prepared dishes are meant to be eaten the same day, and staff usually tell you.

For more useful phrases at the table and the counter, see how to order food in Japanese.

Evening discounts

Near closing time, some prepared-food and bentō counters mark down their prices to clear what is left. Look for stickers saying 半額 (hangaku), 'half price', or a percentage discount, written 〇割引 (waribiki). 割 means one tenth, so 3割引 (sanwaribiki) is 30% off (you pay 70%), and 5割引 is the same as 半額. Some stickers instead give a fixed amount, such as 50円引 (50 yen off). Reduced items are sometimes labelled 見切り品 (mikiri-hin), 'reduced to clear'. The exact timing varies from shop to shop and from day to day, and not every counter discounts, so do not count on a fixed time.

If you want the full choice, go earlier. If saving money matters most, you can go later, knowing that what is left varies from day to day.

What it costs

These are rough ranges written on 21 October 2026, not official prices. They vary a lot with the shop, the season and the product.

To fit this into your daily spending, see Japan daily budget: how much money per day.

The gift side

The depachika is also where Japanese people buy gifts. At certain times of year, especially midsummer (お中元, ochūgen, roughly July to mid-August) and year-end (お歳暮, oseibo, early to late December), people send gifts to those they feel indebted to, such as relatives, bosses, clients and teachers, and the gift counters fill up. The store usually ships these for you. The custom is less strict than it once was. Packaging is part of the present, so wrapping is done with care.

• The sales assistant may ask whether it is a gift, often as 贈答用ですか (zōtōyō desu ka) or ご自宅用ですか (gojitakuyō desu ka), 'is it for home use?', or simply 贈り物ですか (okurimono desu ka), 'is it a gift?'. To ask for gift wrapping, say 「贈り物用にお願いします。」 (okurimono-yō ni onegai shimasu). If it is a gift, the wrapping and bag are usually more careful, sometimes with a separate carrier bag.
• A box of sweets from a famous brand is the classic omiyage, the souvenir you bring back for colleagues, family and friends.
• Check the best-before date and how to store it. Some fresh sweets must be eaten the same day.

More ideas in what to buy in Japan: souvenirs and gifts. For a bigger purchase, see also the Japan tax-free shopping guide: the rules for food are specific and vary, so check at the tax-free counter.

Etiquette in the depachika

• Do not eat while walking around the hall, and do not carry a sample away: eat it at the counter and put the toothpick in the bin. Buy, then eat somewhere else, such as your room, a bench or a designated eating area.
• Take samples one at a time, and do not keep returning to the same counter just to taste.
• Do not block a counter while you decide. If you need time, step aside and come back.
• Queue properly. If there is no clear line, ask or watch who arrived first.
• Do not photograph counters without asking. Staff and other customers do not want to appear in your photos.

Where to find them

Depachika sit in the basements of department stores, often connected directly to the station. In big cities such as Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Nagoya, the largest stores by the main stations have very large food floors. We do not name specific chains in this guide, because on 21 October 2026 we could not load an official page for any of them. Look for B1 or B2 (地下1階 or 地下2階) in the store directory, or the word 食品 (shokuhin), 'food'.

What to buy for dinner tonight

• A bentō or a sushi set as the main dish.
• One or two salads or cooked vegetables from a sōzai counter, to balance the meal.
• A grilled chicken skewer, a croquette or some tempura, if still warm.
• A portion of rice or an onigiri, if your bentō has no rice.
• A small sweet, Japanese or Western, for dessert.
• A drink, tea or water, which you can buy on the same floor or from a vending machine.

Allergies and reading labels

If you have allergies, be cautious. Labels are in Japanese and staff may not speak English, so confirming ingredients is not always easy. Labels usually list the main allergens, but you cannot count on that at every counter, especially for food made on the spot. If in doubt, choose something else. Show the allergen word written on your phone, and remember that a translator helps but does not replace the staff member's confirmation. The printed label heading for ingredients is 原材料名 (genzairyō-mei), with allergens on a separate line, usually 一部に〇〇を含む ('contains some 〇〇'). Dates are 消費期限 (shōhi kigen, use-by) and 賞味期限 (shōmi kigen, best-before). You can ask 「〇〇アレルギーがあります。入っていますか。」 (〇〇 arerugī ga arimasu. Haitte imasu ka), 'I have a 〇〇 allergy. Is it in this?'. Be aware that items packed at the counter (対面販売, taimen hanbai) often carry no full label, so ask the staff.

Japanese words for the depachika

Official information

On 21 October 2026 we followed the redirects from the Mitsukoshi and Isetan store addresses, but their new mistore.jp pages timed out from our tools, and the Takashimaya, Daimaru Matsuzakaya and JNTO pages we tried did not give us usable content. The one official page that loaded was the Hankyu Umeda main-store site. It labels a link デパ地下フード情報 ('depachika food information'), which shows that the store treats its basement food floor as a feature in its own right, but it does not give the floor number, hours or prices. Everything else above is a general description and rough price ranges, not official information. Hours, discounts and prices change, so check with the store you plan to visit.

Hankyu Umeda main store (official site, Japanese), checked on 21 October 2026.