This restaurant is located about 30 minutes by car from Karuizawa Station. This was my first visit since it relocated about 150 meters from its previous location in June 2025. Inside, there are two private rooms for 6-8 people and 2-4 people, both requiring full reservations. Chef Suzuki trained for four years at a local pizzeria in Saku before heading to Italy. After further honing his skills at Il pizzaiolo del presidente and Noma in Denmark, he returned to Japan. The non-alcoholic pairings offered here are exceptional. From the second drink onward, he encourages guests to enjoy the drinks as a sauce alongside the dishes.Course + Non-Alcoholic Pairing: JPY 79,800+ Champagne: JPY 4,400- Goya Rice Steamed Dish: Made with white rice from the Ina Valley in Shinshu, goya, and topped with caviar.- Cucumber Somen: Served with sweet sake from Kurosawa Brewery, fresh fennel juice, fennel seeds, and Granny Smith apples. Fermented cucumbers and freshly made somen noodles.- Grilled Eggplant: Inspired by feminine eggplants, featuring white peach, moss peach, lavender flowers, and extracts from fermented eggplant skin. A dish that expresses the wild essence of eggplant, made with dough from wheat and the moisture of grilled eggplant, black pork, perilla, and miso.- Freshly Harvested Corn Ice Cream: Accompanied by Benifuki tea and crushed cacao. A caramel filled with corn extract and corn crumble, garnished with nasturtium and marigold.- Shinshu Salmon: With fermented raspberries, rose distillate, red shiso, and Darjeeling tea. A specialty dish, surrounded by thin slices of fermented turnip, fermented tomatoes, and pomegranate sauce.- Sweetfish Spring Rolls: With watermelon, rhubarb, and extracts from spring-fermented butterbur. Sweetfish liver and fish sauce seasoned and wrapped in a thin skin made with Managiri peppers.- Summer Venison Fillet Cutlet: Served with blood orange, red bell pepper, pink pepper, and rose hip. Accompanied by a spicy sauce made from fermented chili and paprika.- Freshly Baked Focaccia.- Zucchini Spaghetti: With apricot, lapsang souchong, and star anise. Made with hand-squeezed juice from grilled zucchini. Served with white squid and instant-smoked zucchini flowers and pollen mayo. It’s said that adding the pollen mayo gives it a flavor reminiscent of yakisoba.- Watermelon Gelato: Made with only milk and fresh watermelon, pickled fir tree buds, and red pine oil.- Hazelnut Cake.- Herbal Tea.Every dish, non-alcoholic drink, and their combinations were truly exceptional. From the first dish, the Goya Rice Steamed Dish, I was thoroughly satisfied. The Freshly Harvested Corn Ice Cream made me feel like I was biting into freshly picked corn from the field. The Summer Venison Fillet Cutlet was incredibly indulgent in a good way. It had an ethnic flair, reminiscent of lamb dishes from the Middle East. The biggest surprise was the Zucchini Spaghetti. I wondered why it was called spaghetti, but it’s because it’s boiled in hand-squeezed zucchini juice. By the way, they use 50 grilled zucchinis for 10 servings, squeezing 100 zucchinis a day.There are many combinations that only those who have tasted them would understand, and I highly recommend experiencing this restaurant at least once. This was my first time trying the summer menu, and I was impressed by how delicious it was. Though it’s a bit of wishful thinking, I hope to return if the opportunity arises.
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