World famous Japanese restaurant opening first ever Toronto location

A globally famous Japanese restaurant chain serving udon with locations around the world will soon be opening their first ever Toronto restaurant.

Marugame has over 25 years of history behind it, and over all those years has ballooned to over 1,000 locations around the world. Now, they’re finally opening their first restaurant in Toronto.

The restaurant chain specializes in traditional Sanuki udon noodles and tempura, and they’re known for their noodles that are made fresh every day.

The brand already has Canadian locations in Calgary and British Columbia, but now Toronto is finally getting a taste of Marugame’s excellent and internationally recognized Japanese food.

Marugame serves udon both in soup and with sauce, including curry sauce. Their signature dish is their kake udon, which is served with their umami fish dashi soup. They also have udon in soup with beef or fried tofu.

Two options for udon with sauce are Nikutama udon with beef, an onsen egg and their BK sauce, and their BK udon with a rich, sweet and smoky fish-stock-based dashi sauce. They also serve curry Nikutama udon and chicken katsu curry udon. They’ve also got chicken katsu curry don and gyu don (beef) if rice is more your thing.

They don’t just do udon, though: the restaurant is also well known for their tempura, with options including pumpkin, shrimp, squid, asparagus, mushroom, chicken and egg.

Marugame also serves special items like a tan tan udon with a spicy sesame broth, spicy ground pork and a soft boiled egg.

“Marugame Udon holds true to the authentic tradition of Sanuki udon which started centuries ago in the Kagawa Prefecture in the southern part of Japan. Marugame Udon provides hand crafted udon bowls and tempura from a lively open kitchen, allowing guests to watch as their food is prepared,” reads the official Marugame website.

“Making Udon noodles in the Marugame way is a long, time-consuming craft. Making daily from simple three ingredients, flour, water and salt in our open kitchen, we stick to what we do because we want our customers to enjoy the best taste and texture of real Sanuki udon from Japan.”

The official website continues, “Since we opened our first overseas restaurant in Hawaii, USA in 2011, we have expanded our restaurants through Asia to North America, reaching 1,000 restaurants in the world in 2018. In 2021, we opened our first restaurant in Europe in London, UK.”

Marugame at 494 Yonge St. should be opening in Toronto on Feb. 28.