After a two-year absence, the Craft Gyoza Fes returns to Osaka Castle Park for Golden Week 2026. The dumpling-stuffed festival, which drew a whopping 250,000 visitors last time it visited Osaka during the spring holidays, brings together 17 vendors and more than 30 types of gyoza across five days at the open-air Sun Square (Taiyo no Hiroba).
Pan-fried, boiled, deep-fried, steamed, wrapped, souped, sauced and stacked with cheese – this year's line-up is organised around four categories intended to showcase just how far the humble dumpling can be pushed.
‘Neo Gyoza’ leads with creative cross-cultural mashups: think salted butter truffle, duck peperoncino and green chilli clam soup. ‘Local Gyoza’ covers Japan's regional favourites, from bite-sized Hakata dumplings with Kurobuta pork and mentaiko cheese to Kyoto lemon gyoza with sparkling citrus jelly.
‘Traditional Chinese’ brings hand-wrapped xiaolongbao and Hong Kong dim sum as well as shrimp dumplings in crab sauce and steamed shark fin dumplings. ‘Artisan Gyoza’ rounds things out while pushing the boat out a little further with Sichuan mapo deep-fried gyoza, 100-percent Kuroge wagyu beef gyoza, and ginger gyoza swimming in bonito and Hokkaido kombu broth.
Stuffed for choice doesn’t quite cover it, especially given there’ll also be stalls for fried rice and sweet treats, as well as craft beer and gin cocktails.
The event is free to enter, but there are a range of advance ticket packs that bundle food tickets with a fast-lane queue-skip pass at a small discount on the individual price.