PINE STORE — Restaurant in Nara

Google calls this an ‘eclectic’ restaurant, but in London you would call this ‘small plates’ dining: Japanese food with sometimes subtle influences from foreign cultures. There is a kind of humble, understatedly creative cooking at play here. The chef clearly knows what he is doing, he is not doing a by-the-numbers rendition of Japanese staples here. Plus he does EVERYTHING, it’s a one-person show. So in that sense, eclectic is deserved!

Come here if you love good...

Beautiful presented, delicious, delicate and depth in the flavours. A really good variety of dishes. We had a selection of small plates, I don’t eat meat and found plenty. I would recommend everything we ate including the avocado and cheese spring rolls, the tomato basil salad, potato salad, smoked cheese. The other dishes coming out looked fantastic. Note it is cash only, upstairs and translate the menu on your phone if you can’t speak japanese (which...

Such a hidden gem! Quite difficult to find: you need to get into the alley-mall, and go up to the second floor through the green stairs. You can only see the english name upstairs as downstairs is only a japanese sign. The menu is only in japanese but Google translate came to our rescue. We ordered the totsukawa mushrooms, the potato salad and the chargrilled pork belly and all absolutely amazing. I only wish we were more hungry to try...