eresia — Restaurant in Nakatsugawa

Absolutely a hidden gem in Japan, a must visit if you’re near Nakatsugawa!

The restaurant has 2 seating areas, one for 4 guests facing Kousuke (the chef) so you can watch him cook and interact and another area in the open room next door where you have a bit more privacy.

The food was absolutely top tier. We started off with an assortiment of seasoned veggies, which sounds simple but was amazingly refreshing. For our main course we had the wild boar ragu and the gorgonzola pasta. Both excellent dishes but the boar ragu was so good we ordered it again right after finishing!

We had a silky, full bodied 2022 Ohisama red wine which was excellent and the best wine I had in Japan, we brought a bottle with us!

We had great conversations with Kousuke (with the help of Google Translate 😂) and it was one of out most fun nights out during our stay in Japan.

I would recommend making a reservation to make sure of your spot but we didn’t have one...

I can’t say wow enough. Got very lucky to snag a same day dinner reservation. Chef responded to Instagram DM very quickly and had an opening for the night we were arriving to Nakatsugawa. An absolute delight of a person and can very much see how much he enjoys perfecting his craft. Every course was carefully curated to provide an extraordinary dining experience. The restaurant is very intimate with only a counter that can seat a max of 5 people and 2 small tables. Everything is prepared in front of you and chef explains it all and it’s local origins/significance. Top quality ingredients prepared to perfection. We had a wonderful time and very much enjoyed, also had great drink options to pair with food. Chef is very proud of his hometown and even connected us to other places to eat and bar to enjoy during our stay. Would absolutely recommend...

A wonderful, intimate meal, that provides a taste of Nakatsugawa.

We were very lucky to get two seats last minute and messaged on Google chat the night before.

Sadly for the restaurant, they had a last minute cancellation on the actual night, so it meant we had the restaurant to ourselves.

The whole ethos of the restaurant is local produce - from the food and wine, to the cutlery and tables. The chef is incredibly passionate about his home town and it was interesting to learn about the area through a culinary tour; we had some unusual dishes, including chicken sashimi (it’s a delicacy here and tastes incredible).

We conversed through a mixture of English and Google Translate and the chef was patient with our limited...