City dining guide
2 guide-listed restaurants — Michelin, Bib Gourmand, Black Pearl, Must-Eat List, World's 50 Best and more. Reference quality signals; never ranked by commission, no in-app checkout.
Seiji Matsushima grows crops and makes pottery. He doesn’t just knead earth, though, he also kneads soba. The thin juwari soba set out on dishes he made himself exudes rusticity and the way of life of a self-described farmer. He grows the buckwheat berries for the sobagaki himself. Basil picked in the field in the summer is served with soba topped with a thick dashi-rich sauce, and winter yuzu is served with hot soba. Grated daikon is used in place of wasabi.
The meals here are all based on unpolished rice. Vegetable dishes with no meat or fish are served in small pots with unpolished rice that’s been cooked in a wood-fired oven. The owner-chef calls himself a master of unpolished rice cake, his speciality being rice cake made with a mortar and pestle. He wants his customers to get to know tastes that are being lost in an age of plenty, so he seasons his dishes with soy sauce, miso and mirin made using traditional processes.