How to read a Japanese restaurant menu: an N4–N5 guide

Most Japanese menus are built from about forty words, and you already know a third of them. A menu looks impossible because it is dense, not because it is advanced — the same cooking methods, the same four or five proteins and the same portion words recur from a ¥600 lunch set to an izakaya list forty items long. This guide breaks a menu into the five blocks it is actually made of, with the JLPT level of each kanji taken from our own kanji data rather than from memory.

TL;DR

Read the ending, not the beginning. The cooking method (焼き, 揚げ, 煮, 蒸し, 生) sits at the end of the dish name and tells you what will arrive.
定食 is the safest order for a beginner: a main plus rice, soup and a side, priced as one item.
Two numbers matter at the end: 税込 (tax included) and, at izakaya, お通し — a small dish you did not order and will be charged for.

Block 1: what kind of meal is it?

The first thing a menu tells you is the format, and that is usually one word.

定食 (teishoku) — set meal. A main dish served with rice, miso soup and a small side, one price. Both characters are approachable: 定 (fix, determine) is N3 and 食 (eat, food) is N5.
丼 (don) — a rice bowl with the topping on top: 牛丼 beef bowl, 親子丼 chicken and egg. The character is not in our JLPT kanji set at all, yet you will read it on day one in Japan.
単品 (tanpin) — à la carte, the dish on its own. 品 (goods, article) is N4.
セット — a set, usually the dish plus a drink or a small side. Written in katakana.
日替わり (higawari) — the daily special. 日 N5 plus 替 (replace, N2). Often the best value on a lunch menu.
本日のおすすめ — today's recommendation. 本日 is the formal way to write "today" you already met on food labels.

Block 2: the cooking method

This is the highest-value block on the whole menu, because it is what physically arrives. In Japanese the method usually comes at the end of the dish name, after the ingredient — 鶏の唐揚げ is chicken, deep-fried; 焼き魚 is grilled fish. Learn five characters and you can predict almost any dish.

焼き (yaki) — grilled, pan-fried, baked. 焼 is N2. Seen in 焼き鳥, 焼き魚, 焼きそば.
揚げ (age) — deep-fried. 揚 is N1 in our set, so recognise it rather than trying to write it. 唐揚げ (fried chicken) and 天ぷら are the usual suspects.
煮 (ni) — simmered in seasoned broth. 煮 is N1. 煮物 is the general word for a simmered dish.
蒸し (mushi) — steamed. 蒸 is N2. 茶碗蒸し is the savoury steamed egg custard.
生 (nama) — raw, or fresh. 生 is N5 and one of the hardest-working characters in the language; on a drinks list 生 on its own means draught beer.

Two more worth adding once those five are automatic: 刺身 (sashimi, raw sliced fish — 刺 N2) and 炒め (itame, stir-fried).

Block 3: what is in it

The protein words are short, high-frequency and mostly N4, which makes this the easiest block to learn quickly.

鶏 (tori) — chicken. N1 as a character, but the word is everywhere; you will often see it written とり or 鳥 instead.
豚 (buta) — pork. N1 as a character; 豚カツ, 豚汁.
牛 (gyū) — beef. 牛 is N4. 牛丼, 牛肉.
魚 (sakana) — fish. 魚 is N4.
海老 (ebi) — prawn. 海 N4 plus 老 N3 — literally "sea elder", one of the more memorable compounds in food Japanese.
野菜 (yasai) — vegetables. 野 N4 plus 菜 N2.
肉 (niku) — meat generally. 肉 is N4 and turns up attached to the animal: 牛肉, 豚肉, 鶏肉.

Taste words sit in the same block. 辛口 is spicy or dry, 甘口 mild or sweet — 辛 and 甘 are both N2. If you need something left out, the pattern is ingredient + 抜き: ネギ抜き means "no spring onion".

Block 4: how much of it

Portion words are where a cheap meal quietly becomes an expensive one, and they are almost all N5 characters you already have.

大盛り (ōmori) — large portion. 大 N5 plus 盛 (N1 as a character, but you will only ever read it here).
並盛 (namimori) — regular. 並 is N2.
小盛 (komori) — small. 小 N5.
一人前 (ichininmae) — one serving, one person's portion. 人 and 前 are both N5. Important on shared dishes priced per portion.
半分 (hanbun) — half. 半 and 分, both N5.
替玉 (kaedama) — an extra ball of noodles added to your remaining ramen broth, ordered as a top-up.

Block 5: the money block

The bottom of the menu, in smaller type, is where the surprises live. Four things to look for:

税込 / 税抜 — tax included or excluded. 税 (N2) plus 込 (N3). Japan has required total-price display since April 2021, so 税込 is normally the big number.
サービス料 — service charge, added by some restaurants and most hotel dining rooms. 料 (fee) is N4 and shows up in 料金, 材料, 無料.
お通し (otōshi) — the small dish that arrives at an izakaya without being ordered. It is a seat charge in the shape of food, it is normal, and it is not a mistake on your bill. 通 is N4.
飲み放題 / 食べ放題 — all-you-can-drink / all-you-can-eat. 放 (N3) plus 題 (N4). These are usually time-limited, so look for a number followed by 分 (minutes) or 時間 (hours) — 時 and 間 are N5.

When you are ready to pay, the word is お会計 (o-kaikei) — 会 and 計 are both N4 — or お勘定 in more traditional places. Splitting the bill is 別々に (betsubetsu ni), but not every restaurant will do it, and at a busy izakaya the answer is often one total and sort it out yourselves.

Ordering: the six phrases that cover it

Menu reading only pays off if you can order what you read. These six carry nearly every meal:

すみません — the call for attention. Not rude; it is how everyone flags a server.
これをください — "this one, please", with a finger on the menu. Perfectly acceptable Japanese.
◯◯をお願いします — the same thing, slightly more polite, with the dish name.
おすすめは何ですか — "what do you recommend?" Best question on this list; it also teaches you the shop's actual specialty.
◯◯抜きでお願いします — "without ◯◯, please". The allergy and preference workhorse.
お会計お願いします — "the bill, please". At a ticket-machine shop (食券機) you have already paid on the way in.

That ticket machine deserves a note of its own: at many ramen and gyudon shops you buy a 食券 (meal ticket) from a vending machine at the door and hand the slip to the counter. 券 is N2. The top-left button is usually the shop's signature dish, which is a genuinely useful default when the machine is all kanji and there is a queue behind you.

How to practise without a tutor

Menus are the ideal study material because they are free, everywhere, and repetitive. Three habits that work:

Read the menu before you order, every time. Even when you already know what you want. Two minutes a meal is more contact hours than most people get from an app.
Photograph one menu a week and work through it at home with a dictionary. Restaurants near you use the same words repeatedly — that repetition is the whole point.
Learn dishes as whole words first, then break them apart. 唐揚げ as a word, then 揚 as a character, is faster than the reverse and matches how you actually meet the language.

FAQ

What JLPT level do I need to read a Japanese menu?

N5 grammar plus roughly forty food-specific words will get you through most casual restaurants. The characters are a mix — 大, 小, 生, 半 and 分 are N5, while 焼, 蒸, 税 and 並 are N2 — so a menu is not neatly one level.

What is お通し and can I refuse it?

It is a small dish served automatically at izakaya and charged per person, functioning as a cover charge. Some places will cancel it if you ask, many will not, and it is not an error on your bill.

What does 定食 include?

A main dish with rice, miso soup and usually a small pickled or vegetable side, sold as one item. It is normally better value than ordering the same main à la carte (単品).

How do I ask for a dish without an ingredient?

Use ingredient + 抜きでお願いします. For a genuine allergy, say アレルギーがあります and name the ingredient — the polite request form does not carry the same weight as stating an allergy.

Is the pictured dish the actual portion?

Photo menus and plastic food models are held to reasonable accuracy by advertising rules, but the reliable check is the portion word: look for 大盛り, 並盛 or 一人前 next to the price.

Next steps

The vocabulary here overlaps almost completely with what is printed on convenience store labels, so the two are worth learning together — see convenience store Japanese for the label, date and register half of the same word set. If you commute, the kanji you see on Tokyo trains is the third high-repetition set. To work the characters in this article systematically, start with the N5 kanji list, look up any single character such as 食 on its own page, or take the quiz to find where you actually are.