This is Hamamoto from TIMEWELL.
Expo 2025 is not just an exhibition — it is one of the most concentrated collections of international food in Japan's recent history. Over 150 countries are represented, and a significant number of pavilions have incorporated dedicated food service. This report covers a range of dining experiences from across the venue, with honest assessments of food quality, wait times, pricing, and what makes each stop worth considering.
The Heidi Café: Swiss Pavilion's Most Famous Queue
The Heidi Café, located inside the Swiss Pavilion and accessed through a separate entry queue from the main pavilion, consistently generates some of the venue's longest waits. On peak days, queues reach three hours.
The space itself is striking — an open, light-filled interior with natural light from the grand roof above creating an effect more like a European café than a temporary exhibition venue. The atmosphere alone communicates something different from the rest of the site.
The menu is priced at the higher end, but portions are substantial. The Swiss-inspired breakfast offerings center on raclette-style preparations — a melted cheese course that represents a small glimpse of the country's cooperative dairy tradition. The oatmeal and yogurt combination plate was singled out for its visual presentation and nutritional balance. The experience of eating it in that space — unhurried, with the ambient hum of the venue outside — was described as genuinely different from anything available elsewhere at the Expo.
The practical assessment: worth visiting if you have a specific slot in mind (arrival just after opening, or mid-afternoon on a quieter weekday), but not worth a spontaneous three-hour wait. Factor it into your day's plan rather than approaching it as a casual stop.
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Street-Style International Snacks: Creative and Accessible
For visitors who want to eat across multiple countries without committing to a restaurant queue, the street food options are excellent.
Myaku-Myaku ice cream (¥486): Sold from a green bus-style stand near the Uzbekistan Pavilion, in vanilla or matcha. The presentation is distinctive — shaped to evoke the Expo's mascot character — and the ice cream itself was praised for its texture and flavor. One visitor described the style as reminiscent of ice cream sold by bicycle vendors in Showa-era parks: simple, familiar, and unexpectedly satisfying in an outdoor setting.
Canada Pavilion café: Menu includes maple soft serve, poutine (fries with cheese and gravy), and a range of drinks including beer and wine. The seating area has outdoor tables allowing genuine rest. The poutine in particular stood out for its concentration of flavor — thick, rich, and very different from most Japanese-influenced food at the venue.
Across the street food area, the common observation was that waiting in line becomes part of the experience itself. The proximity of vendors from neighboring countries creates spontaneous conversation and informal cultural exchange that would not occur in a seated restaurant setting.
Three Deeper Dining Experiences
Saudi Arabia Café (inside Saudi Arabia Pavilion): This is a full-service café requiring approximately 30 minutes' wait, tucked inside the Saudi Arabia Pavilion in its own dedicated space. The menu includes fresh vegetable sandwiches and Saudi coffee served in small paper cups — a coffee that one visitor noted tastes entirely unlike conventional coffee, with a herbal and cardamom character rather than roasted bitterness. Dates and a small pastry selection complement the drinks. The overall experience reads as higher-end than most of the venue's food options, with pricing that reflects that positioning but which most visitors considered fair for the quality.
Pakistani Restaurant (Ringside Market, near Osaka Healthcare Pavilion): The standout value spot of the report. The restaurant occupies a large space in the Ringside Market area, with serving portions that drew immediate comment. The menu includes lamb and beef preparations using high-quality Japanese beef — specifically noted as Kobe beef — with the meat's tenderness and depth of flavor described as exceptional. Pricing was described as among the most accessible in the venue for the quality offered.
Wagyu sukiyaki bento (opening day takeout): Available from a takeout stall near the main entrance on opening day, the bento centered on high-grade Japanese wagyu beef prepared sukiyaki-style. The quality was immediately apparent, and the price point — relatively high for a bento, but comparable to a quality restaurant meal — was considered justified by multiple visitors. A portable dining experience that provided access to premium Japanese ingredients without a restaurant reservation.
Osaka × Shizuoka collaboration stand: A street food stand combining Tsukishita (Osaka) and Unagi Pie (Shizuoka) products, with shaded seating in the center. The fusion of two regional Japanese food traditions into a single pop-up was well-received for creativity, and the covered seating provided genuine refuge from sun during summer visits.
Closing Assessment
The food landscape at Expo 2025 reflects the overall quality of the event: genuinely international, more varied than any single trip could fully explore, and consistently better than what you'd expect from a temporary exhibition site.
For business visitors, the food program is worth treating as a substantive part of the day's agenda — not a necessity to be dispensed with efficiently, but a series of opportunities to observe how international brands, food traditions, and cultural identities are presented through the medium of dining. The choices made in menu design, pricing, service style, and physical environment say something coherent about each participating country's understanding of its own food culture.
The practical guide for food at the Expo: plan two or three specific stops you are genuinely interested in, allow realistic time for waits at the most popular spots, and use the street food area for the rest. The combination will cover a full range of the event's food experience without requiring marathon queuing.
Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VddfZNdJft0