Japanese · Kanto Kansai

Sukiyaki Kanto Kansai Style Differences

Sukiyaki (すき焼き) is Japan's most famous hot pot dish — but it is not one dish: the Kanto (Tokyo) and Kansai (Osaka-Kyoto) styles are sufficiently different to constitute two distinct preparations sharing a name. Kanto-style sukiyaki uses a pre-made warishita broth — a balanced sweet-savoury liquid of soy sauce, mirin, sake, and sugar — poured into the pan before the beef is added. Kansai-style is more theatrical and older in tradition: the beef is placed directly into the dry, hot iron pan, quickly seared, then sugar is sprinkled directly over it, sake is added for steam, then soy sauce directly — the liquid builds from the meat's own juices rather than pre-made broth. Both styles use premium wagyu beef sliced paper-thin, and both are served with raw egg for dipping each piece before eating — the egg tempers the hot salty beef and adds richness. Both include tofu (ideally firm grilled tofu, yaki-dofu), negi leeks, shiitake, shungiku chrysanthemum leaves, konnyaku, and harusame glass noodles. The pan's cast-iron cooking surface remains exposed in Kansai style, giving the beef a seared flavour character absent from Kanto's broth-poached result.

ServesFour portions

Sourced2of 16 in BC

Cook

The Market List

The benchmark for each ingredient, and who stocks it near you. Tap a stockist to go straight to the product.

Beef

600 g

wagyu ribeye or sirloin

sliced paper-thin

Not yet stocked in British Columbia

30 g

wagyu fat trimming

for seasoning the pan (Kansai)

Not yet stocked in British Columbia

Vegetables & Aromatics

negi leeks

cut on the diagonal into 4 cm lengths

Your own market

shiitake mushrooms

stems removed

Your own market

1 bunch

shungiku chrysanthemum leaves

stems trimmed; added only at the end

Not yet stocked in British Columbia

Tofu & Noodles

400 g

yaki-dofu (grilled firm tofu)

cut into large cubes

Not yet stocked in British Columbia

100 g

harusame glass noodles

soaked in cold water until pliable

Not yet stocked in British Columbia

200 g

konnyaku

torn into bite-sized pieces; blanched briefly

Not yet stocked in British Columbia

For the warishita (Kanto broth)

120 ml

soy sauce

Purely Artisan Foods · San Diego →

120 ml

mirin

Not yet stocked in British Columbia

120 ml

sake

Not yet stocked in British Columbia

2 tbsp

sugar

Your own market

For Kansai-style seasoning (applied at the pan)

2 tbsp

sugar

sprinkled directly over seared beef

Your own market

60 ml

sake

added to the hot pan for steam

Not yet stocked in British Columbia

60 ml

soy sauce

added directly after sake

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For dipping

eggs

raw; cracked into individual bowls and lightly beaten

Your own market

Each tap is counted, so the stockist sees the demand Provenance sends them.

The Method

KANTO METHOD — Combine soy sauce, mirin, sake, and sugar in a small saucepan and warm over low heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Remove from the heat. This is the warishita. It is ready when the sugar is fully dissolved and the liquid is uniform. KANSAI METHOD — Heat the cast-iron nabe pot over high heat until very hot. Place the wagyu fat trimmings in the dry pan and render them, moving the fat across the cooking surface to season it fully. The pan is ready when the surface is evenly coated and lightly smoking.

KANTO METHOD — Pour the warishita into the seasoned pot over medium heat. Bring to a gentle simmer — never a vigorous boil. Add the yaki-dofu, konnyaku, negi, and shiitake. The pot is ready to receive beef when the broth simmers steadily and the vegetables have begun to absorb colour. KANSAI METHOD — Lay the first portions of paper-thin wagyu directly onto the dry, hot, fat-seasoned surface. Sear briefly. The beef is ready to season when its underside has coloured and fat begins to render visibly at the edges.

From the canon — Shiitake mushroom (Lentinus edodes) holds a unique dual identity in Japanese cooking — it is both a premium fresh ingredient with specific flavour and textur… Shiitake — Fresh and Dried Applications →

KANSAI METHOD ONLY — This is where the dish lives or dies: sprinkle sugar directly over the seared beef, pour sake into the hot pan to generate steam, then add soy sauce directly. The liquid builds from the meat's own juices and these additions — not from pre-made broth. The seasoning is correct when the pan holds a small pool of glossy, dark, sweet-savoury liquid and the beef is just cooked through. Do not allow the pan to boil dry; the cast-iron surface must remain partially exposed.

Add the soaked harusame noodles to whichever style is being prepared. In Kanto, submerge them in the simmering warishita; in Kansai, nestle them into the pan liquid. They are ready when they have turned fully translucent and absorbed the surrounding liquid.

KANTO — Add successive small batches of beef to the simmering warishita. Do not overload the pan: too many pieces cause steaming rather than poaching. Each batch is done when the beef has just lost its raw colour and remains tender. As the broth reduces and concentrates through the meal, adjust with additional sake to maintain balance. KANSAI — Continue adding beef in batches, searing and seasoning each batch individually. The cast-iron surface between pieces must remain exposed.

Add the shungiku chrysanthemum leaves at the very end of the meal, not at the beginning. They are done in seconds — as soon as the leaves wilt and turn bright green. Their slightly bitter flavour cuts through the accumulated richness of the broth and fat.

Each diner cracks one raw egg into a small bowl and beats it lightly. Every piece of beef and vegetable is lifted from the pot, dipped briefly into the raw egg, and eaten immediately. The heat of the cooked piece sets the egg surface on contact, tempering the heat of the beef and adding a layer of richness. The dipping egg is the correct consistency when it coats the piece without running off entirely.

III

Quality Hierarchy

Reserve — Certified A5 wagyu ribeye or sirloin, sliced to order by a specialist butcher; yaki-dofu made in-house from nigari-set tofu; hand-foraged shungiku; warishita made with hon-mirin and aged soy sauce.

Estate — A4 wagyu or high-grade domestic marbled beef, pre-sliced by a Japanese butcher; commercial yaki-dofu sourced from a Japanese grocery; warishita built from quality soy, mirin, and sake.

Market — Well-marbled beef (rib or sirloin) sliced as thinly as possible, ideally partially frozen for cleaner cuts; firm tofu grilled at home in a dry pan to substitute yaki-dofu; standard sake and soy sauce.

House — Any finely sliced marbled beef available; regular firm tofu ungrilled; standard supermarket soy sauce, mirin, and sake; the Kanto warishita format recommended as it is more forgiving of ingredient variation.

Sensory Tests

◇Sight. Warishita is uniform and glossy with no undissolved sugar visible; or, Kansai pan surface shows an even sheen of rendered fat and is lightly smoking before beef is added.

◇Sight. Harusame noodles are fully translucent throughout, having absorbed surrounding liquid.

◇Sight. Kansai pan holds a small pool of dark, glossy sweet-savoury liquid around the seared beef, with the cast-iron surface still partially visible between pieces.

◇Sight. Shungiku leaves have wilted and turned bright green — the signal to remove and eat immediately.

◇Touch. Each piece of beef yields to light pressure without resistance; it has just lost its raw softness but has not tightened into toughness.

◇Smell. The Kansai pan releases a sharp plume of steam carrying sweet soy and caramelising sugar when sake hits the hot iron — the correct sign that the seasoning sequence is proceeding.

◇Where it lives or dies. The dish lives or dies in the Kansai searing moment: beef laid on a dry hot iron surface, sugar sprinkled directly, sake added for steam, then soy sauce — the liquid must build from the meat's own juices into a glossy pool, never from pre-made broth, and the pan must never be allowed to boil out entirely.

V · Cross-Cuisine Parallels

Chinese: Suan cai rou pian — paper-thin sliced pork in a seasoned broth with strong regional variation, parallel to sukiyaki's own Kanto–Kansai style-difference dynamic (Tsuji, Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art). Swiss: Fondue bourguignon — thin-cut beef pieces cooked briefly at the table in hot liquid, served with dipping sauces; the same tabletop cooking and individual dipping format (Tsuji, Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art). Korean: Bulgogi — sweet-soy marinated thin-sliced beef cooked at the table; the same sweet-savoury soy-seasoned beef tradition (Tsuji, Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art).

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What to Pour

The pairing

Bushmills Malt 10 Year Old

Old Bushmills Distillery · County Antrim — Bushmills Distillery

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Whisky

From British Columbia

Fort Berens Riesling

Fort Berens Estate Winery · Lillooet

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Wine

Without alcohol

GT's Synergy Organic Kombucha — Gingerade

Not yet stocked in British Columbia

Non-alcoholic

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The whole pairing

VII · Origin & Lineage

Sukiyaki in its modern form entered Japanese culture during the Meiji era with the national adoption of beef-eating. The Kansai style — dry-pan searing with sugar, sake, and soy applied directly — is the older tradition, possibly extending to the Edo period. The Kanto style, characterised by the pre-made warishita broth, became the dominant format in Tokyo and eventually nationwide. Both traditions are documented in Tsuji Shizuo, Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art, which treats them as distinct preparations sharing a name and a shared winter-celebration function across Japan.

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Origin and lineage are part of membership.

Where the dish comes from and how it came to be — on every recipe.

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Sourced through Provenance

The hands behind the plate.

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San Diego · soy sauce, soy sauce

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