Les Saveurs Shima: Kintetsu's New Restaurant Train to Ise-Shima — Menus, Timetable, Prices and How to Ride It From Abroad

What Les Saveurs Shima Is

Les Saveurs means “the flavors” in French, and the train is a joint project of three Kintetsu Group companies: Kintetsu Railway runs it, Kintetsu Miyako Hotels oversees the kitchen, and Kintetsu Retailing handles the onboard service. It is a four-car train rebuilt from one of Kintetsu's limited express sets, painted deep blue with a gold line, and its symbol mark is the ria coastline of Ago Bay drawn as a dinner plate.

Each car has a job:

• Cars 1 and 2 — French Zen dining. Tables are angled toward the windows and separated by tall partitions, so each party has its own alcove. Car 2 also has solo seats, the only seats sold to people traveling alone. Car 1 has a restroom and is wheelchair accessible.
• Car 3 — the kitchen. Dishes are finished and plated here, and the galley is open enough that you can watch the cooks at work on your way through.
• Car 4 — French Course dining. Just 16 seats at two- and four-person tables with leather armchairs and marble-look tabletops, a restroom, and luggage space at both ends of the cabin.

The train is not fast and is not meant to be. The lunch run takes two and a half hours from Nagoya to Kashikojima, about an hour longer than the ordinary limited express, which is the point: the meal is paced to the journey. Both directions serve the same menu, one meal per trip, with a welcome drink when you board and a drink after the meal. Mie wines, sake and juices are sold on board, and the French Course has an optional pairing set. Payment on board is cashless only.

Route and Timetable

Les Saveurs Shima runs one round trip a day between Kintetsu-Nagoya and Kashikojima, on most days of the week but not every day; the operating calendar is published on the booking site month by month. The stops are the Ise-Shima stations you would use anyway: Iseshi and Ujiyamada for Ise Grand Shrine, Toba for Mikimoto Pearl Island and the ferries, Ugata for the Yokoyama Observatory, and Kashikojima for Ago Bay and its resort hotels.

The one rule that matters when you plan a day around it: the French Course car only opens its doors at Nagoya, Ugata and Kashikojima. If you want to board or get off in Ise or Toba, you are booking the French Zen in cars 1 and 2.

The Two Menus and What They Cost

The French Course is the headline act: a plated, course-by-course French meal supervised by Hiroe Higuchi, executive chef of the Shima Kanko Hotel on Kashikojima since 2014, the hotel whose French cooking made Ise-Shima a destination for Japanese gourmets long before the train existed. The ingredients are Mie's: Ise lobster and abalone from the Shima coast, local chicken, mountain vegetables.

The French Zen (フレンチ膳) is the same cooking philosophy in a different format: a French set meal arranged in stacked wooden boxes, with soup, bread and dessert served alongside, supervised by Kintetsu Miyako Hotels. “Zen” here is the Japanese word for a meal tray, not a reference to Zen Buddhism. It is the menu you get in cars 1 and 2, and because those cars stop at every station, it is also the menu that works for a day that starts or ends at Ise Grand Shrine.

Two practical notes that the official FAQ is clear about. First, the kitchen does not change dishes for allergies: if an ingredient cannot simply be left off, the dish is not served, so travelers with serious allergies should think twice before building a day around this meal. Second, you cannot bring your own food or drink on board, and nothing can be added to the menu on the day.

How Booking Works (and Why It Is Hard From Abroad)

Kintetsu sells Les Saveurs Shima only through a dedicated reservation website, and only as a meal plan with a seat attached. The rules, as published for the launch season:

• Release dates: each month's departures go on sale on the 1st of the month three months earlier. November and December 2026 went on sale on 1 September 2026; January 2027 on 1 October; and so on.
• Deadline: bookings close 11 days before the travel date. Cancellation fees start 10 days before.
• Seats: every seat is reserved and chosen on a seat map. Two-person tables are for two; four-person tables are for three or four. There is no waiting list. Solo travelers can only book the solo seats in car 2.
• Tickets: digital only, shown on your phone; printed copies are not accepted. The ticket covers your boarding and alighting stations plus free rides between Iseshi and Kashikojima on the day.
• Not for sale at stations. Travel agencies sell the train inside package tours — Club Tourism, another Kintetsu Group company, has been doing so since May 2026.

What the site does not have, as of late October 2026, is an English page. The reservation system, the seat map and the confirmation emails are in Japanese, the FAQ makes no mention of support in other languages, and a lost confirmation email cannot be reissued. It is doable with a translation app and patience, but a mistake at the seat-map stage is expensive, and the 11-day cutoff means there is no margin to fix one from overseas. The one English-language listing we found, on KKday, is a two-day escorted group tour conducted in Japanese (about ¥90,000) that uses the lunch run and returns on the Shimakaze.

Rail passes do not help either. The Japan Rail Pass has never covered Kintetsu, which is a private railway, and because the train is sold only as a meal package, there is no fare to discount.

Lunch Run or Dinner Run? Choosing a Direction

Japanese day-trippers from Nagoya mostly take the lunch run south and come back on an ordinary express, which is why the southbound seats sell faster. For visitors from overseas, the choice is different, because Ise-Shima is rarely a day trip: it is a one- or two-night stop between the Kansai cities and Tokyo, and the question is which end of that stop the train should be.

The dinner run solves a problem every Ise itinerary has: you spend the day at the shrine and Okage Yokocho, and then have to move on with an evening meal still to find. Boarding at Iseshi at 17:26 with dinner already on the table, and stepping off in Nagoya at 19:12 with a hotel by the station, is a tidy end to the day. It is also the direction with better availability, which matters for weekend dates. The honest caveat is the winter light: the French Zen cars boarding at Ise travel mostly after dark from November to January. If the view is the point, take the lunch run, or board the dinner run at Kashikojima, where the 16:35 departure catches the last light over Ago Bay.

Our Self-Guided Routes That Include a Seat

Two of our routes build the train into a longer journey, with the seat and the meal booked for you along with the hotels, the Shinkansen and limited express tickets, luggage forwarding, travel medical insurance in Japan and 24/7 support while you travel. Because of the boarding rules above, both ride in the French Zen cars: EX005 boards in Ise and EX004 gets off at Toba. If you would rather have the 16-seat French Course, tell us when you inquire — it means boarding or alighting at Ugata or Kashikojima, so the day is planned differently.

EX005: the dinner run, at the end of a food-and-onsen loop

The nine-day Gourmet Rail Journey: Restaurant Train & Regional Flavors (EX005) is the one to look at if you have been to Japan before, or if food and hot springs matter more to you than ticking off Kyoto. It runs Tokyo → Kinosaki Onsen → Osaka → Matsusaka and Ago Bay → Ise → Nagoya → Tokyo, and the train is the last leg of the Ise-Shima part.

The day the train comes is a full one: the España Cruise around Ago Bay in the morning, the limited express up to Ujiyamada, the bus out to Naiku and lunch in Okage Yokocho, then the bus back and the 17:26 departure. The reward is that dinner is handled, your large luggage has already gone ahead to Tokyo, and the next morning is a free one in Nagoya — or in Inuyama, with Japan's oldest original castle keep — before the Shinkansen. Our Kinosaki Onsen guide and Nagoya guide cover the two ends of the route.

EX004: the lunch run, on the way from Mount Fuji to Kyoto

The ten-day Gourmet Rail Journey: Fuji, Ise & Kanazawa (EX004) is the first-visit version: it has Mount Fuji, Kyoto and Kanazawa in it, and the train comes on day three, heading south from Nagoya with lunch aboard.

Getting off at Toba at 13:05 leaves the afternoon for Mikimoto Pearl Island and the short hop down to Kashikojima for a night at the Shima Kanko Hotel The Classic, the hotel of the chef who supervises the train's French Course. Ise Grand Shrine comes the next morning, then the Shimakaze to Kyoto, so the two Kintetsu sightseeing trains bracket the Ise-Shima stay. Our Ise Grand Shrine guide explains the Geku-then-Naiku order and the bus between them.

Building the Day Around the Train

Whichever direction you ride, the stops along the line are the reason to come to Ise-Shima at all:

• Ise Grand Shrine (Iseshi / Ujiyamada). Japan's most sacred Shinto shrine, free to enter, open from 5:00. Visit the Outer Shrine first, then the bus to the Inner Shrine, and finish in Okage Yokocho for Ise udon and Akafuku mochi — four to five hours for the lot. Details, hours and etiquette in our Ise Grand Shrine guide.
• Toba. Mikimoto Pearl Island, where cultured pearls were first produced, with ama diver demonstrations; the ama huts along the coast serve grilled shellfish for lunch. See our Ise-Shima guide.
• Ugata and Kashikojima. The Yokoyama Observatory above the ria inlets, the España Cruise on Ago Bay, and the resort hotels on the water where the 2016 G7 summit was held.
• Matsusaka. One stop before Ise on the Kintetsu line and the home of Matsusaka beef; EX005 stops here for lunch at Wadakin on the way down.

If you are riding on your own and arriving from Kyoto or Osaka, the Kintetsu limited express takes about two hours to Iseshi; from Tokyo, it is the Shinkansen to Nagoya (about 1 hour 40 minutes) and then the train itself. The Shimakaze, Kintetsu's observation-car express, runs the same line from Osaka, Kyoto and Nagoya and makes a good pairing: the Shimakaze one way for the views, Les Saveurs Shima the other way for the meal. For a wider itinerary context, our guides to where to stay in Osaka and luggage forwarding cover the practical side.

How It Compares With Japan's Other Restaurant Trains

Japan has a dozen or so sightseeing trains where the meal is the main event, and most share the same shape: a small number of seats, a set menu of local ingredients sold together with the ticket, a ride of one to three hours through countryside or along the sea, and a booking form in Japanese. Les Saveurs Shima is the newest of them. For comparison, these are the ones visitors ask us about most (our guide to Japan's restaurant trains covers each in more depth):

• TOHOKU EMOTION (JR East) — the best-known restaurant train, along the Pacific coast between Hachinohe and Kuji in northern Tohoku: a multi-course lunch on the way out and desserts on the way back, in cars decorated with regional crafts and a live kitchen. A long way north for a first visit.
• 52 Seats of Happiness (Seibu Railway) — from Seibu-Ikebukuro or Seibu-Shinjuku in Tokyo into the Chichibu mountains, brunch out and dinner back, with menus that lean French. The easiest to add to Tokyo days.
• Tango Kuromatsu (Kyoto Tango Railway) — a one-car restaurant train on the Sea of Japan coast of Kyoto Prefecture around Amanohashidate, with breakfast, lunch and dinner courses on different runs.
• Berumonta (JR West) — a single car in Toyama with a sushi chef on board preparing Toyama Bay sushi while the Tateyama mountains pass the window; weekends only.
• Seven Stars in Kyushu and Train Suite Shiki-shima — a different category altogether: multi-day luxury cruise trains with sleeping cars and their own dining car, sold by application or lottery months ahead at prices in the hundreds of thousands of yen per person.

What sets Les Saveurs Shima apart is the destination at the end of the line. The others are the day's outing; this one is a transfer you would make anyway, between Nagoya and the shrine coast, with Ise Grand Shrine, Ago Bay and the Shima Kanko Hotel's kitchen on the far side of it. It also runs on most days rather than weekends only, which makes it far easier to fit into a fixed itinerary — and, with 50 seats a day instead of 24 or 39, a little easier to get. Eating on trains is an old habit in Japan, from the ekiben boxed meals and onigiri rice balls sold on station platforms for generations; the restaurant trains simply turn that culture into a full meal served plate by plate, seasonal and regional, which is the taste of Japanese food culture at its best.

Want to ride Les Saveurs Shima as part of a self-guided trip through Japan? Get in touch through Plan My Trip on our self-guided tours site, and we’ll suggest the tours that best fit your dates and plans.

FAQ: Les Saveurs Shima