The two obvious bases
Meieki — the district around Nagoya Station — is the practical choice: every train line in the region under your room, department-store food halls for last-minute souvenirs, and the eel, wing and noodle shops of the station city itself. If your trip includes day trips to Inuyama, Okazaki or the airport, sleep here.
Sakae is the centre: the taverns, the wing houses, the department stores and the late bars, all walkable. If your evenings matter more than your mornings, sleep here and walk home from dinner with no train to catch.
The dark horse: Kanayama
One interchange south of the centre, Kanayama has every line that matters — JR, Meitetsu and two subway lines — plus an under-the-tracks strip of izakaya that fills with locals, not visitors. Hotels here run noticeably cheaper than Meieki for the same room.
It is also the natural base for the Mizuho stadium during the Asian Games, two stops away on the Meijo line.
For an early flight: the airport island
Centrair has hotels on the island itself, and Tokoname — one stop away — has cheaper ones plus a pottery town to walk in the evening. The airport’s fourth-floor food street opens early enough to turn even a 7am departure into a last bowl of kishimen.
Do this for the final night only. The island is convenient exactly once.
During the Asian Games weeks
From 19 September to 4 October 2026 the city hosts the Asian Games, and hotel prices around Meieki and Sakae will behave accordingly. Book months out, or aim at Kanayama, Ozone and the eastern subway stops, where the same nights cost less and the Meijo line still delivers you to the venues.
The restaurants themselves do not take bookings differently during the Games — but the famous ones will queue harder, and the eating-at-11:15 trick becomes genuinely valuable.
What rooms cost
Nagoya is one of Japan’s better hotel-value cities. A clean business hotel double near a subway stop runs ¥8,000–¥14,000 most nights; the international brands above the station charge two to three times that for the view. Prices spike for the Grand Prix in early spring, big concerts, and the Games weeks — if a date looks strangely expensive, that is why, and moving one station out usually fixes it.
Book the bed before you build the eating plan around it. The links below search the hotel sites in your language.
The onsen alternative
If the trip has a spare night, Gamagori on the coast an hour south has hot-spring hotels over Mikawa Bay, where dinner is the point: the bay’s catch served as sashimi spreads that would cost triple in the city. One night there turns a food trip into a holiday.
Inuyama plays the same card inland, with a castle and river town attached.