In Japanese cuisine, yōshoku (洋食, western food) refers to a style of Western-influenced cooking which originated during the Meiji Restoration. These are primarily Japanized forms of European dishes, often featuring Western names, and usually written in katakana. It is an example of fusion cuisine.

At the beginning of the Meiji Restoration (1868–1912), national seclusion was eliminated and the Meiji Emperor declared Western ideas helpful for Japan's future progress. As part of the reforms, the Emperor lifted the ban on red meat and promoted Western cuisine, which was viewed as the cause of the Westerners' greater physical size. Yōshoku thus relies on meat as an ingredient, unlike the typical Japanese cuisine at the time. Additionally, many of the Westerners who started to live in Japan at that time refused to touch traditional Japanese food (washoku), so their private Japanese chefs learned how to cook them Western-style cuisine, often with a Japanese spin.

The first recorded print appearance of the term "yōshoku" dates back to 1872. In the past, the term was for Western cuisine, regardless of the country of origin (as opposed to French, English, Italian, etc.), but people became aware of differences between European cuisines and yōshoku in the 1980s, due to the opening of many European restaurants serving more authentically European (non-Japanized) food.

In 1872, Japanese writer Kanagaki Robun (仮名垣魯文) popularized the related term seiyō ryōri in his Seiyō Ryōritsū ('western food handbook'). Seiyō ryōri mostly refers to French and Italian cooking while Yōshoku is a generic term for Japanese dishes inspired by Western food that are distinct from the washoku tradition. Another difference is that seiyō ryōri is eaten using a knife and fork, while Yōshoku is eaten using chopsticks and a spoon.

Earlier dishes of European origin – notably those imported from Portugal in the 16th century such as tempura (inspired by the fritter-cooking techniques of the Portuguese residing in Nagasaki in the 16th century), are not, strictly speaking, part of yoshoku, which refers only to Meiji-era food. However, some yōshoku restaurants serve tempura.

Yōshoku varies in how Japanized it is: while yōshoku may be eaten with a spoon (as in カレー, karē, curry), paired with bread or a plate of rice (called ライス, raisu) and written in katakana to reflect that they are foreign words, some have become sufficiently Japanized that they are often treated as normal Japanese food (washoku), served alongside rice and miso soup, and eaten with chopsticks. An example of the latter is katsu, which is eaten with chopsticks and a bowl of white rice (ご飯; gohan), and may even be served with traditional Japanese sauces such as ponzu or grated daikon, rather than katsu sauce. Reflecting this, katsu is often written in hiragana as かつ, as a native Japanese word, rather than as カツ (from カツレツ, katsuretsu, 'cutlet').

Another more contemporary term for Western food is mukokuseki ("no-nationality" cuisine).

Jihei Ishii, author of the 1898 The Japanese Complete Cookbook (日本料理法大全), states that: "Yōshoku is Japanese food."^{[citation needed]}