DESTINATION RESTAURANTS
By TAEKO TERAO
In early February, a meeting was held at the Tokyo headquarters of The Japan Times to select the winners of Destination Restaurants 2026 from among various dining establishments contributing to regional revitalization. The judges were again Yoshiki Tsuji, Naoyuki Honda and Takefumi Hamada, who have served in this role since the first competition in 2021. Restaurants of all genres outside major cities were eligible for selection.
Kesennuma Kuromori, a shark fin (fukahire) restaurant that opened in Miyagi Prefecture in 2025, was selected as the Destination Restaurant of the Year 2026. In recent years, shark fishing has been regulated internationally, with bans on sales of shark fins becoming increasingly prevalent due to concerns about shark conservation and marine ecosystem protection. Amid these circumstances,
Kesennuma Kuromori is creating highly original shark fin cuisine while working in cooperation with producers in Kesennuma — an area with a deeply rooted culture of using all parts of the shark and wasting nothing. The judges were deeply impressed by this concept.
“Offering an essential aspect of culinary culture from Japan’s leading shark fin production area, without being swayed by prevailing international views, is a splendid approach,” said Tsuji. Honda added: “Since the Tohoku earthquake, Kesennuma has faced population decline and difficult conditions. But shark fin cuisine, a rarity throughout the world, has enough impact in and of itself to draw people to the area.”
Three of this year’s restaurants are in prefectures not previously represented in Destination Restaurants: Fukui, Shiga and Saga. Regarding the restaurant Tsukihi, in the Fukui city of Echizen, Hamada commented, “In Europe, restaurants attached to wineries are commonplace, and that model is finally starting to emerge in Japan as well.” Tsukihi’s selection raises the expectation that the merging of wineries and gastronomy will progress as a movement in Japan as well.
With Kesennuma Kuromori heading the list, seven out of this year’s 10 selected restaurants were launched (or reopened after renovations) in 2024 or 2025. There was a strong sense that gastronomy is gaining greater and greater momentum in Japan’s regional areas.
Headmaster of the Tsuji Culinary Institute and president of the Tsujicho Group
In France, the idea that excellent cuisine is found in the countryside is deeply rooted, and among renowned French chefs such as Paul Bocuse and Joel Robuchon, not one was born in Paris. An advantage of regional areas is the relative ease of conveying local character and culture. On Japan’s gastronomic scene as well, the dominance of regional areas is growing year by year.
Previously, chefs in Japan who wanted to refine their skills had to train in large cities, but today it is possible to master advanced techniques at restaurants in local areas. Looking at this year’s 10 selected restaurants in particular, it seems there has been a sudden increase in the diversity of technical skill and creative expression. As a result, we have seen the emergence of a new generation that follows on the heels of chefs who in recent years have led the regional gastronomic scene — chefs like Eiji Taniguchi of Cuisine régionale L’évo in Toyama Prefecture and Kanji Kobayashi of Villa Aida in Wakayama Prefecture. Chef Tsuyoshi Nakagawa of U-Ki-Tomam in Yamagata Prefecture creates distinctive cuisine that is somehow both Japanese and non-Japanese, and his remarkable growth as a chef over the past several years resulted in the restaurant’s selection. Ryuichi Nishimoto of Mano in Nagano Prefecture has a talent for using aromas to the fullest, and for capturing the character of ingredients in a way that defies the imagination.
The idea that creating cuisine in regional areas is “cool” has taken root among the younger generation. This is a truly heartening development. Gastronomy in regional Japan will certainly keep expanding and growing. I look forward to seeing chefs learn and refine their skills even more.
President and CEO, Leverage Consulting Inc.
As Destination Restaurants marks its sixth year, candidate restaurants are emerging in far-flung locations. Even if it is quite a trek, people will make the effort to go to a restaurant with delicious cuisine. (The situation in Europe is an obvious example.) While regional areas are dealing with many issues, including depopulation and the advancing age of local producers, the presence of influential restaurants is becoming one solution to these problems.
The endeavors of Chef Yoji Kuromori of Kesennuma Kuromori are a persuasive model for chefs who are struggling in local areas or working in large cities and pondering whether to return to their home region. In the past, opening a fine-dining restaurant in a regional area was regarded as unrealistic, but today, with soaring rents and other rising costs, running a restaurant in Tokyo is actually more difficult. If it is housed in the family home of the chef (or chef’s spouse), a restaurant can be run sustainably in terms of management as well. Two examples are Rukawa in Shiga Prefecture, which occupies the traditional house where the chef was born and raised, and Sén in Nara Prefecture, the Japanese inn that is the family home of the chef’s wife. (Both structures have been renovated.) A chef whose home and restaurant are in close proximity will likely have more time to engage with ingredients and enhance creativity. Ultimately, the local area will benefit as well.
It is also helpful to have support from government entities. Creating an environment favorable to operating a restaurant, for example by arranging means of transportation, brings in visitors, which benefits both the community and the local government. I hope to see more cooperative programs like this in the future.
CEO, Access All Areas Inc.
New restaurants feature prominently in this year’s Destination Restaurants, and many of them are located in places difficult to reach by public transportation. Could these restaurants have been established in the same locations 10 years ago? Probably not. A decade ago it was hard to attract many customers even in Sendai, a major city. But after the pandemic, and with the continuing growth of social media and so on, drawing customers has become possible even in remote areas.
On the other hand, simply using local ingredients is no longer enough, as it has become the norm for chefs to start from the initial stage of asking producers to make certain products and raising the value of ingredients. In more and more areas, chefs cooperatively set up a system in which several restaurants purchase ingredients as a group if an order from just one restaurant would not be cost-effective.
When the value of regional restaurants increases, the area is energized overall, starting with primary producers. And with prices rising considerably at restaurants in Tokyo, continued affordability is another notable advantage of regional areas. Above all, the true joy of Destination Restaurants is the chance to physically experience the land in a beautiful natural setting, at restaurants like Robata to Wine K in Hokkaido, situated on a hill overlooking the sea, and Nôtori, in a forest at the foot of Mount Fuji in Yamanashi Prefecture. This year again, the 10 selected restaurants communicate the appeal of Japan’s regions.
