~1.25h — the round trip from the gangway, with the 60-minute margin kept aside.
Tap a photo to see it large. 6 photographs, each credited.
Not a recipe — a rule. It must be hand-made to order, after you order it, from local ingredients. Everything else is up to the shop, which is why dozens of certified places all produce something different. It descends from the US Navy in the 1950s.
The only rule is that it must be made after you order it
The burger arrived with the US Navy in 1950 and the town made it its own. Sasebo does not certify recipes, it certifies method: hand-made to order, after you order. There are around twenty accredited shops, all of them slow on purpose, and the buns are usually toasted to hold the load.
There is no Sasebo burger recipe. There is a rule: hand-made, to order, after the customer has ordered, using local ingredients. Everything else is up to the shop — which is why dozens of certified places all produce something different, and why arguing about which is best is a local sport.
Local shops learn to make them
Thin beef, lemon and soy, rice to finish
And no reputation outside the city
By process, not recipe: hand-made, after you order
Order a bacon-egg burger and wait the fifteen minutes. Anything faster is not the real thing.
The one the queue agrees on, the one people who live here use instead, and the one nearest your ship. Opening days change; check before you build a day around one.
The burger most visitors are sent to, and large enough to be a whole lunch.
Open in Google MapsWhere locals goHikari Burgerヒカリ 本店Since 1951, which makes it one of the originals rather than a revival.
Open in Google MapsClosest to the berthBig Man Kyomachiビッグマン 京町本店In the arcade, and the shop that put smoked bacon in a Sasebo burger.
Open in Google MapsCounted from the moment you step off the gangway. The hour before all-aboard is not in this bar; it is already set aside.
5 minutes each way is the honest figure for 5 min from miura, not the optimistic one. If your ship is late, cut the 1 hr 5 min in the middle. Never cut the hour at the end.
Each of these still lands you back aboard with the hour to spare on a 6-hour stop ashore.
Each one is a finished day we have walked and timed, with this stop in it. Read the route rather than assembling it yourself.
Each of these still lands you back aboard with the hour to spare.
2 hr 30 min for bothAbout a kilometre of covered shopping in a straight line, among the longest of its kind in Japan, five minutes from the gangway.
See the detail →
3 hr 15 min for bothThin beef seared on a hot plate and finished with a lemon and soy sauce, then rice tipped into the remaining sauce at the end.
See the detail →
3 hr 45 min for bothThe classic view over the islands, from a headland the city planted with 150,000 cosmos for autumn and rape flowers for spring.
See the detail →No typing needed — jump straight in:
Just docked? — the gangway toolStart from your shipThe ride from every berthAsk the editorGlossary