Ikeda-cho / Ura-Tenma (Tenroku / JR Tenma Area)

Ura-Tenma in Ikeda-cho is a back alley warren of varied restaurants, izakaya pubs, and food stalls, sandwiched perfectly just between Osaka’s JR Tenma and Tenroku Stations.

High-end traditional, street food, a dizzying array of international cuisines, and every kind of drinking establishment: This is Ikeda-cho © Angelino Donnachaidh

Sandwiched perfectly just between JR Tenma Station and Tenroku Station on the subway (and sometimes referred to as ura-Tenma, literally “rear/inner Tenma”), Ikeda-cho has for decades been a popular dinner and nightlife neighborhood that was nonetheless not very well-known outside of its core crowd of locals. As a longtime resident of the area, I’m even a little ambivalent about drawing more attention to it through this article.

The neighborhood has always been a perfect open secret with a lovely balance of bustling activity and authentic local charm. Perhaps, in places, reminiscent of Shinjuku’s Golden Gai and in others of Taipei’s night markets, it is nonetheless Osakan to the bone.

The core of Ikeda-cho is a network of small alleyways with shanty-style street restaurants © Angelino Donnachaidh

But changes are afoot whether we like them or not, and there has perhaps never been a better time than now for tourists to pay the area a visit. Successive waves of new entrepreneurial restaurant investment both before and after the COVID-19 pandemic have led to an explosive expansion of the already impressive and diverse range of eats and drinks on offer without yet subsuming the vibrant and deep-rooted local culture or longtime fixtures of the neighborhood.

Ikeda-cho is a veritable gauntlet of kui-daore (“eat-til-you-drop”) pleasures © Angelino Donnachaidh

Ikeda-cho really has it all. Local comfort food classics like yakitori, oden, sushi of every grade, okonomiyaki and kushikatsu and yakisoba abound in street stalls and sit-down restaurants alike. Turn your gaze global and you’ll find top-tier Chinese restaurants, American-style spare rib joints, Spanish tapas bars, Italian and French bistros, pizza, curry, and one of Osaka’s oldest and best-established Mexican restaurants. And that’s before even discussing the different specialty bars.

You’re already walking down a narrow back-alley in Ikeda-cho, when you stumble upon an even smaller back-alley © Angelino Donnachaidh

As the historic home to a deep-rooted Korean-Japanese population, Ikeda-cho also has some of the best and most authentic speakeasy hole-in-the-wall Japanese Korean joints in Osaka. “Japanese people and tourists go to Tsuruhashi for Korean food,” a local Korean expat friend of the author sometimes liked to quip, referring to the much more famous Osaka Koreatown neighborhood around Tsuruhashi Station, “but Koreans in Osaka come to Ikeda-cho.”

One of Osaka’s oldest Mexican restaurants, Bokkoku Kaiten Tori Ryori ‘¡Que Rico!’ – which describes its own menu as “Japamex” © Angelino Donnachaidh

The area was also once home to a vast marketplace of butchers, greengrocers, and stalls offering kimchi and other Korean-Japanese goodies. It’s largely still here, but the explosion in new restaurants has pushed it a bit more to the periphery. If you’re interested in checking out the best of what’s left, head to Tenma Ichiba (located in the basement of the Plala Tenma building just off JR Tenma Station).

If you like drinking and casual nightlife, there’s no spirit or style of bar you can’t find in Ikeda-cho either © Angelino Donnachaidh

You can (and many do) go to Ikeda-cho just for the endless food, but it’s also full of popular nightlife haunts, making it a suitable spot to park yourself at a bar counter for wine, whisky, bourbon, sake, shochu, or cocktails. Particularly good times to visit, in this regard, are the nights of the Tenjin Festival (Tenjin-matsuri) in July, after the fireworks are over, when the neighborhood comes even more to life and really lets it all hang out.

Though much less seedy and adult-focused than the nearby Higashi-dori and Ohatsu-tenjin nightlife areas, Ikeda-cho is also home to Toyo Show, an adult cabaret a short walk from the main drag, and a smattering of small “girls bars.” Nothing is deceptively signed or really in your face, so you’re not going to run into any of it without looking for it, but it is worth knowing for those who care one way or the other.

About Angelino Donnachaidh
Angelino Donnachaidh is a Mexican-American father, author, Japanese-English translator, and longtime resident of Osaka, Japan. His works include the middle grade (pre-)historical fiction novel Tamiu: A Cat’s Tale (Winner of the North Street Prize and CWA Muse Medallion), the YA post-cyberpunk heist adventure screenplay Brother (Winner of the HollywoodGenre 2025 Scifi Screenplay Competition), and the upcoming samurai scifi-fantasy action-thriller novel The Mayhem Protocols.

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Ikeda-cho Information

Name in English:
Ikeda-cho

Name in Japanese:
池田町

English address:
Ikeda-cho, Kita Ward, Osaka, 530-0033

Japanese address:
〒530-0033 大阪府大阪市北区池田町

Opening hours:
Varies depending on restaurant
(Typical lunch hours approximately 11:00am-2:00pm)
(Typical dinner and nightlife hours approximately 6:00pm-12:00am)

Non-smoking area: Varies depending on restaurant. (Many are fully smoking, some are fully non-smoking.)

Nearest transport:
5-minute walk from JR Tenma Station on the Osaka Loop Line
5-minute walk from Tenjinbashisuji 6-chome (“Ten-roku”) Station on the Osaka Metro (subway) Sakaisuji and Tanimachi Lines, and the Hankyu Senri Line

Website: Wikipedia (Japanese)

Near To Here:
Ura-Tenma is located in Osaka’s Kita and Umeda district. See our complete list of things to do in the Kita and Umeda district, including places to eat, nightlife and places to stay.

Best Osaka Restaurants
See our list of the best Osaka restaurants for even more ideas about great places to eat in Osaka.

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