ABSTRACT
In recent years, Japanese restaurants have spread around the world. Based on archival research and original ethnographic fieldwork, this chapter gives a historical and sociological overview of the global expansion of Japanese restaurant cuisine in Asia, North America, Europe, and Latin America. It describes multiple historical waves of Japanese culinary globalization and the different types of culinary communities that played a central role in each wave of globalization, from imperial diasporas, to settler communities, to business expatriates. In the most recent phase of culinary expansion, the protagonists of the story shift to non-Japanese migrant entrepreneurs and Japanese food-service corporations who have furthered the spread of Japanese restaurants around the world.
