Three of My Favorite Walking Tours
and Gourmet Restaurant Focus

Creator of the civic pride slogan “Amazing Toyama”, Dr. Joseph Runzo-Inada is former Rockefeller Chief Resilience Officer for Toyama City and is currently Executive Adviser to Toyama Prefecture. An American, he lives in Toyama with his Japanese wife Keiko and their Boston Terrier. He is an avid cook and traveler and is active in international ecological sustainability.

Toyama is extraordinary, one of those rare global cities situated between the sea and towering mountains. Historically, protected on all sides by the formidable Northern Japan Alps and the broad Japan sea, it was the home to inspired artists, religious idealists, farmers and innovative business people who may have wished to avoid the constraints of the central government and roving armies. Once the center of all Japanese medicine, and visited by the haiku master Basho in 1689, today it is the center of Japanese glass art and a New York Times “52 places to go in 2025”.

I am an American, my wife is Japanese. For ten years I was the Rockefeller Chief Resilience Officer for Toyama City under Mayor Masashi Mori. I have had the good fortune of being invited to speak in more than thirty countries and experienced world-wide cultures and cuisines and Toyama rates as one of those special “off the usual beaten path” hidden gems of culture and cuisine.

Below are three of my favorite cultural walking areas in the city with gourmet restaurant destinations. All locations are on Google Maps and are all convenient to the German inspired light rail system, the first complete city light rail network in Japan. For those arriving by Shinkansen, the light rail conveniently goes straight through the ground floor of the JR station, another first in Japan. There are also clusters of easy to rent Cyclecity bicycles. The restaurants were chosen on the basis of proximity to major sights, convenient tram and walking access, range of restaurant types, use of unique and freshest ingredients from Toyama, atmosphere, and modest cost for cuisine type.