六花 RIKKA — Restaurant in Kutchan

I highly recommend RIKKA’s omakase, which was an authentic Japanese culinary experience. The omakase highlighted delicious local ingredients that Hokkaido is famous for, like scallops and oysters, so you are tasting the best that Hokkaido has to offer, all in one evening. RIKKA just opened in December 2023 and deserves more patrons and recognition.

Other details: The chef is a local and professionally trained in Tokyo, and so he knows how to use Hokkaido ingredients well. The price for the omakase was also very reasonable, $100-120 USD for an 11-course meal, comparable if not cheaper than similar omakase in the United States.

The service was also excellent. The owner and some wait staff spoke some English. The restaurant also offers driving service, where they pick you up from your hotel and then drive you back to your hotel after your meal. This was really useful, since getting a taxi for the hours 4pm-10pm without knowing how to speak Japanese is extremely difficult in this area.

If you order a bottle of sake for the table, you each get to choose your own personal sake cup from a beautiful selection of cups of different shapes, sizes, and colors. I thought this was a fun touch!

The chef and restaurant owner are both locals and just opened this restaurant in December 2023 after the lack of tourism during COVID unfortunately caused the chef’s previous restaurant to close permanently.

I highly encourage folks to try out this new restaurant. Not only is the food delicious and thoughtfully prepared, but you are supporting a local Japanese business. They deserve more foot traffic — when we went, we were only one of two groups, and the place was more than half empty. Use tablecheck to make a reservation. Help spread the word about this...

We had another excellent meal at Rikka with Shefu Kohei Ishii. He is very talented and we enjoyed him and his staff at our second dinner there--our first was in February 2024 and our second was in March 2024. It was an omakase meal of 10 courses, special for us because it was our second visit. The chef is very talented and imaginative. The meal was a delight. First, there was the Akkeshi oyster that we loved, the second was Sakura Masu (translated to “cherry salmon”) and it was, indeed, special. Next was the hon maguro roll with uni on top—yum. Followed by our favorite chawan mushi with uni and ikura. Excellent! The grilled hakkaku was a treat—very meaty and very delicious (but we couldn’t eat the skin on this one!). The grilled surf clam was next and too tough (we like it sashimi style better). The Takikawa duck was delicious. The Shiretoko wagyu shabu shabu was very tasty (and not a traditional shabu shabu at all). The meat, while thin, was not so chewy and difficult to eat this time around. The sauce was a great accompaniment. The next course of dried mullet roe soba was good. It was served cold. The warabi mochi for dessert was lovely. We drank tea with our meal—both oolong and green. The meal was wonderful. We happily spent ¥34200 for two set...

Very good food. Inventive, locally sourced and beautifully executed. Obviously a talented chef. Highly recommend to visit while in kuchan. Duck was cooked perfectly. Hakkaku fish is uber-local and was soft, delicate and beautifully cooked.

Small things to improve so not 5* for me. Better if restaurant could provide parking guide for guests. Our party and another party both had to ask about parking, then move cars in the wrong place. If we’d been told first by WhatsApp before we arrived that would be fine.

One of the marinated prawn had not had the digestive tract (vein) removed before serving. Basic lack of attention to detail there. And we weren’t served a new one but they “fixed it”.

Maguro sushi roll looks great but is too big to eat easily so cannot enjoy all the flavours together as it falls apart. You end up picking maguro-smithereens from the plate. It’s awkward, and loses the impact and flavours. Hand roll would be better way to do that.

Servers did not serve in the correct order (ladies first).

Other than these very small points an exquisite meal served in a lovely room.

Will come back when next...