Hakodate's Best Ramen Shops & Squid Restaurants

From a 1930 shio ramen institution near Fort Goryokaku to a squid specialist that slices your catch to order, five places worth seeking out for Hakodate's two great food obsessions.

Hakodate has two culinary claims to fame — Japan’s lightest ramen style and some of the country’s freshest squid — and these five places are where locals actually send you for both, from a 1930 shio ramen original to a counter that slices your squid while it’s still moving.

1
Ajisai (Goryokaku Honten)
Ajisai has been synonymous with Hakodate ramen since it opened in 1930, and more than nine decades later it's still routinely ranked among the city's top shops. Its shio ramen is built from a broth of southern-Hokkaido kelp simmered with pork and chicken bones and finished with natural rock salt — clear and light, but with real depth underneath — and the noodles are custom-made to match it, medium-thin and softly wavy, topped with a distinctive piece of fu (wheat gluten) you won't see at most other shops. The honten location, across from Goryokaku Tower, was renovated in 2022 and now has two floors, so the line moves faster than it used to, though there's almost always still a line.
29-22 Goryokakucho, Hakodate
Hakodate
2
Hakodate Ramen Horan (Matsukaze-cho)
Open since 1950, Horan is one of the oldest ramen shops still running in Hakodate, and it hasn't chased any reinvention — the same long red counter and red stools, the same clear shio broth simmered from pork and chicken bones, served with straight noodles that let the soup do the talking. You can watch your bowl being built from the counter seats, which is most of the appeal: no ceremony, just a shop that's been making the same good bowl for over 70 years.
5-13 Matsukaze-cho, Hakodate
3
Menya Ichimonji (Yunokawa)
Menya Ichimonji, near Yunokawa Onsen, is one of the shops locals point to when they want to argue Hakodate ramen isn't just a tourist-menu item — a clear, well-balanced shio broth with straight noodles, served until well past midnight most nights. It's a good stop if you're staying near Yunokawa for the hot springs and want a proper late dinner without heading back into the city center.
11:00 AM – 1:00 AM2-1-3 Yunokawa-cho, Hakodate
4
Ikasei Daimon
Ikasei Daimon specializes in exactly one thing done extremely well: squid sashimi so fresh it's sometimes still moving when it reaches the table. Which squid you get depends on the season — live yari-ika (spear squid) from winter through spring, live ma-ika (Pacific flying squid) from summer through the end of the year — sliced to order with a texture closer to crunchy than chewy. It's an izakaya at heart, so it's worth ordering a few other small plates alongside the squid and treating it as a proper meal rather than a quick stop.
12-12 Toyokawacho, Hakodate
5
Kikuyo Shokudo
Kikuyo Shokudo has been serving the Hakodate Morning Market since 1956, and its signature Tomoe Don — a bowl piled with sea urchin, salmon roe, and scallops over rice — is one of the dishes people specifically travel to the market for. It's grown to four locations across the city and the airport since then, but the original counter inside the market is still the one with the queue out front most mornings. Go early: like most of the market, it's built around breakfast and thins out well before lunch.
11-15 Wakamatsucho, Hakodate

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