Onsen × Local Food — steamed in the vapour, boiled in the spring

Kannawa's jigoku-mushi — steam your own food at 98 °C

In Kannawa, Beppu, 'jigoku-mushi'—cooking food in the steam that vents from the ground—is everyday home cooking. At Jigokumushi Kobo Kannawa on the Ideyu-zaka slope, a Beppu city facility, you load ingredients in baskets into kettles fed by steam at about 98 °C. Buy ingredients on site or bring your own (an extra charge applies). Kettles cost ¥400 for 15 minutes (small) or ¥600 (large). Open 10:00–19:00 (last order 18:00), closed the third Wednesday of each month; no reservations, served in ticket order. Ages 13 and up only; entry, the foot steamer and the foot bath are free.

Kannawa is about 16–26 minutes by Kamenoi Bus from JR Beppu Station. The Beppu 'Hells' sightseeing ponds cluster nearby, and up the hill in Myoban Onsen a shop sells custard pudding steamed over hot-spring vapour.

Yunomine's Yuzutsu — boil eggs in 90 °C spring water

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Nekosuki CC BY-SA 4.0 View original page

At Yunomine Onsen in Kumano, Wakayama, you can boil eggs and vegetables in the roughly 90 °C water of the riverside Yuzutsu spring, from 6:00 to 21:00; eggs and vegetables are sold at nearby souvenir shops. The World Heritage Tsubo-yu bath costs ¥800 for adults in 30-minute turns. It is about 2 hours by Ryujin Bus from Kii-Tanabe Station, or about an hour by Kumano Gobo Nankai Bus from Shingu.

Onsen-egg towns — Wakura, Kusatsu and a breakfast above the basin

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Totti CC BY-SA 4.0 View original page

In Wakura Onsen on Noto you can make onsen eggs at Yumoto Plaza, where the spring emerges. In Kusatsu, onsen eggs are sold around the Yubatake, and there are free foot baths by the bus terminal and elsewhere. At Hottarakashi Onsen in Yamanashi city, the on-site Kimamaya serves breakfast and its signature fried onsen eggs from around sunrise.

Nozawa Onsen in Nagano has the Ogama, a spring of roughly 90 °C designated a village natural monument. The tourism association describes it as the villagers' shared kitchen for boiling vegetables and eggs. Nothing official says visitors may cook there, so please just look.

Ideas for the future

Photo information

Belle Equipe CC BY-SA 3.0 View original page

A class making breakfast with local people using hot-spring steam or water is listed as an idea only. It is not scheduled and cannot be booked.

Browse all onsen

STA3816 · CC BY-SA 3.0

Kannawa Onsen

鉄輪温泉

Oita · 100 Onsen to Know Japan — No. 86

Chloride

Steam rises from every corner of town; people cook vegetables in it, lie on herb-strewn stone to be steamed themselves, and bathe in 100-yen communal baths.

Belle Equipe · CC BY-SA 3.0

Myōban Onsen

明礬温泉

Oita · 100 Onsen to Know Japan — No. 87

SulfurAcidic

On the floor of a thatched hut, crystals grow a millimetre a day from volcanic steam and blue clay: 'yunohana' bath salts, made this way since 1725.

Nekosuki · CC BY-SA 4.0

Yunomine Onsen

湯の峰温泉

Wakayama · 100 Onsen to Know Japan — No. 66

SulfurBicarbonate

You can bathe in a World Heritage site, thirty minutes at a time. The Tsuboyu, a pool hollowed from rock, is where Kumano pilgrims purified themselves.

Totti · CC BY-SA 4.0

Wakura Onsen

和倉温泉

Ishikawa · 100 Onsen to Know Japan — No. 42

Chloride

An 82.7 °C salt spring on the shore of Nanao Bay. The New Year's Day earthquake of 2024 shut all 21 inns; now the lights are coming back one by one.

Aspere · CC0

Kusatsu Onsen

草津温泉

Gunma · 100 Onsen to Know Japan — No. 25

AcidicSulfurSulfateChloride

Thirty-two thousand litres a minute of pH 2.1 acid water rise in the middle of town and cool as they run down wooden channels.

Σ64 · CC BY 3.0

Hottarakashi Onsen

ほったらかし温泉

Yamanashi · 100 Onsen to Know Japan — No. 46

Simple

It opens an hour before sunrise. From the open-air bath you watch the lights of the Kofu basin go out and Mt Fuji turn white.

小石川人晃 · CC BY-SA 4.0

Nozawa Onsen

野沢温泉

Nagano · 100 Onsen to Know Japan — No. 47

Sulfur

All 13 public baths are kept by village 'yu-nakama' bath guilds; you drop a donation in the box and go in. At the Ogama source, villagers still boil vegetables in 90 °C water.

Booking

2 days: jigoku-mushi in Kannawa, Beppu, and yunohana in Myoban

Confirmed costs come to about ¥1,460–1,540 per person (small kettle ¥400 + steam bath ¥700 + bus from Myoban to Beppu Station ¥360–440; checked October 2026), plus ingredients, the bus from Beppu Station to Kannawa and a night in Kannawa (not confirmed)

Day trip: Yuzutsu eggs and Tsubo-yu at Yunomine (from Shingu)

¥800 per person confirmed (Tsubo-yu, checked October 2026). Eggs, vegetables and bus fares not confirmed