Tokyo, Japan

NARISAWAA satoyama kitchen behind a curved wall of glass

Past a room of round tables under spotlights, the kitchen works from satoyama: field, forest and coast held inside the same frame.

The restaurant stands at 2-6-15 Minami-Aoyama in Tokyo, on the ground floor, with the street corner and its trees directly outside the curved glass.

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PlaceMinami-Aoyama, Tokyo

StyleOne tasting menu

KitchenInnovative Satoyama Cuisine

SittingsThree entry times

Where the cooking starts

Tokyo, Japan — Tasting menu from the satoyama.

Narisawa calls its cooking Innovative Satoyama Cuisine. Satoyama is ground lived alongside forest and sea: fields worked, rice grown, and only as much taken from the woods as gets used again. The menu takes that as its rule and asks the land how much before anything is cut.

On the ground floor the glass curves around the corner. Inside is a room of round tables, cloth falling to the edge, chair backs in black leather and set straight, walls in dark wood veneer, spotlights packed into a white ceiling. The kitchen sits on the far side.

Sittings come in three entry times, and the later the hour the less of the evening is left. Dinner ends at 20:00, which leaves Omotesando and Gaienmae within a walk of the door, both of them a stretch of pavement rather than a taxi.

A Minami-Aoyama street corner: a curved glass facade with a white canopy over the door, paving and trees in front of it, a pale building alongside — The curved glass front on a Minami-Aoyama corner

The round-table room: round tables under white cloths, black leather chairs, dark wood panelling on the walls, a white ceiling dense with spotlights, white napkins set on the tables — White cloths and black leather chairs under spotlights

The pass: black cabinets and a wooden counter, warm strip lights under the shelves, a row of lit wine cabinets to the right, a white-clothed table in front

The counter at the pass

Black cabinetry runs along the wall and a wooden counter joins onto it, with strip lights hidden under the shelves and aimed upward. A row of wine cabinets glows on the right. The dining room begins at this end of the counter.

A satoyama ridge: broadleaf canopy in the foreground, layered mountain ridges showing between the leaves, the sky pale behind them

The mountain behind the trees

Broadleaf canopy fills the near ground, and layered ridges of mountain show through the gaps between leaves. Satoyama describes exactly this: woodland, slope and cultivated field held together, with no line drawn between the three.

A white wooden bento box divided into compartments of salad, chicken, broccoli and rice scattered with black sesame, with brioche, roast beef, a jar of sauce and a labelled bag beside it

The box to take away

The official site gives takeaway a page of its own. A white wooden box is divided into compartments and packed with brioche, roast beef and a bag of soup, and what goes in changes with what arrives that day.

Two open bento boxes and several plates spread out on a wooden floor, a branch of cherry blossom across the frame, two wine glasses and a bottle alongside

Route

From Minami-Aoyama, on foot

This takes an evening, and it ends at 20:00. Both Omotesando and Gaienmae are a short walk from the door, so the way back can be walked rather than ridden.

What satoyama means

Close to seventy per cent of Japan is forest, and the coastline wrapping it ranks sixth in the world by length. People farmed and grew rice in the strip between the woods and the water, and the year was arranged around both of them. Two English words sit on the philosophy page beside the menu, Beneficial and Sustainable, one for the body and one for the environment, and they are used with the cooking rather than hung on a wall.

Booking, and arriving

Seats are released early, one month at a time, and the release is fixed to a date rather than to demand. Bookings are made on the site a guest has chosen and nowhere else: the restaurant runs no other channel and will not hold a table over the telephone, so a call at short notice does not produce a seat.

The closer the date, the more a change costs, and the six-day line is where the charge begins. Nobody under seventeen comes in. Smoking is not allowed at the entrance, inside, or on the public ground outside, and no smoking area is provided there either.

Also worth knowing

When the seats appear, when the last one goes in, and what is not allowed through the door.

The first of the month

Seats for the month ahead open at 10:00 on the first. Any change to that release is announced separately.

The last sitting

The last entry for dinner is 18:00, and for lunch 12:30. Both sittings run the menu forward from that hour rather than backwards.

Six days

Changes to party size and cancellations are handled up to six days before the date. Five days out, half is charged; two days out, the whole amount.

Seventeen

Nobody under seventeen is admitted, and age is checked at the door on the way in, before the table is found.

No smoking anywhere

Vapes and shisha fall under the same ban. The ground outside belongs to the public and no smoking area is set up there.

The official site is not a booking desk

Its pages describe the restaurant and nothing more; reservations move to the two online platforms it names.

Putting a meal here into a trip

One menu, three entry times, seats released a month at a time, and a house rule about who comes in.

Cuisine

Satoyama ingredients worked into a single tasting menu, served in three entry times, the last of them shorter than the first.

Booking

Online only, through OMAKASE and Ikyu. The restaurant runs no other channel and does not hold a table by telephone.

Hours

Tuesday to Saturday: lunch 12:00-14:30, dinner 17:30-20:00, with the last entry for dinner at 18:00. Closed Sunday and Monday.

Dress and diet

No dress code is listed on the official site. Anything the kitchen needs to know about diet should be raised with the restaurant when booking.

Plan this into a journey

Tell us the dates and who is travelling, and we can talk through where a three-hour sitting fits into a week in Tokyo.

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