This article deals with the transition of Japanese food culture in the late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century. It explains the three main stages of this transition, namely the adoption of Western haute cuisine by the Japanese élite, the diffusion of Western ingredients, dishes and cookery techniques among the urban middle class, and the popularization of the new Japanese-Western hybrid cuisine by the military. This new cuisine began to acquire the status of culinary "tradition" from the 1950s onwards. Dietary changes in modern Japan were to a large extent a consequence of deliberate policies of the government. In the early stage, Westernization of the élite's diet was regarded as necessary in order to achieve a status of a "civilized" nation. Later, deliberate dietary reforms were undertaken with the aim of improving physical conditions of the population. These deliberate actions were directly influenced by the political circumstances in which Japan found itself in the period discussed.