Kanda Curry Grand Prix

The Kanda Curry Grand Prix is a curry event held each autumn in the Kanda and Jinbōchō district of Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo. Numerous curry restaurants from Kanda—known as the "city of curry"—gather together, and the year's number one is decided by visitor voting, making it a popular food-themed annual event.

Kanda and Jinbōchō are known as a district of secondhand bookstores and offices, and at the same time, one of Japan's foremost fiercely competitive curry areas, packed with restaurants of distinctive character. The Kanda Curry Grand Prix, begun by taking advantage of this local strength, gathers many curry fans as a participatory event in which popular restaurants that survive the preliminaries set up stalls and visitors actually taste and compare them to vote. The winning restaurant is given honor that also leads to customers the following year, so each restaurant offers its proudest dish with full effort.

At the venue, a diverse range of curries—European-style, Indian, spice curry, and more—gather, and over two days the event bustles with tens of thousands of visitors. Offering the chance to enjoy at once the flavors of popular restaurants with ever-present lines, Kanda in autumn is enveloped in the aroma of curry. Though a relatively new event, it has thoroughly established itself as an autumn tradition of Kanda—a modern urban food festival that showcases the area's food culture and enlivens the whole district.