Himawari Shokudo 2: Italian in trending Toyama

Among this year’s 10 selected Destination Restaurants, Himawari Shokudo 2 was honored as the representative Destination Restaurant of the Year 2025. Owner-chef Hozumi Tanaka creates original Italian cuisine at this restaurant in Toyama, the capital of Toyama Prefecture. Along with Osaka, the location of this year’s World Expo, Toyama was one of the Japanese cities included in the New York Times’ “52 Places to Go in 2025,” published in January. In one sense, this seems to be a show of support for the area, which, like Ishikawa Prefecture, suffered damage in the Noto earthquake of Jan. 1, 2024. But the main reason was that Toyama offers cultural inspiration and excellent cuisine, minus the crowds seen in places like Kyoto, where overtourism has become a problem. In addition to the Toyama Glass Art Museum (designed by architect Kengo Kuma), which incorporates a public library, the article recommends casual eating and drinking spots in Toyama including a French bistro, an izakaya and a jazz bar.

At the same time, Toyama Prefecture has seen a steady increase in fine-dining establishments that attract visitors from outside the prefecture and even from overseas — most notably, Cuisine régionale L’évo, which in 2021 was selected as the first-ever Destination Restaurant of the Year. Opened in 2024, Himawari Shokudo 2 is another fine-dining restaurant serving an omakase course menu, at ¥18,000 ($120), including tax. Its predecessor, Himawari Shokudo, was launched in 2013 as the kind of easygoing Italian restaurant that posts its a la carte menu on a blackboard. As with Himawari Shokudo 2, it is common among regional fine-dining establishments to start out with relatively low prices and raise them as the restaurant steadily gains a following, but the background circumstances differ from restaurant to restaurant.

While training in Tokyo, Tanaka was invited by an acquaintance to work as a chef in Toyama, his hometown. He returned there in 2012 to take the job but was laid off six months later. After that he worked part time and saved money, and in 2013 he opened Himawari Shokudo. Initially, the price per customer was ¥6,000 to ¥8,000, including drinks. Eventually Tanaka also offered a course menu for ¥12,000, but he felt a certain discomfort with the course structure.

Tanaka said: “With a la carte it’s more easygoing, since you simply serve the dishes that customers order. An omakase course requires creation. I didn’t think that was something I was capable of. But when I relocated the restaurant and started Himawari Shokudo 2, I had to borrow more money and reduce the number of seats to eight, so I had no choice but to serve a course menu for ¥18,000. And when I set about creating a menu, I was surprised at how many ideas I came up with.”

Indeed, the course menu abounds in delightful ideas. While the appetizer crepe made from mountain yam and dried bonito and topped with a firefly squid is reminiscent of Japanese cuisine, there is also an original take on Middle Eastern falafel (chickpea fritters). Needless to say, these dishes are the products of Tanaka’s talent, and at the same time there is probably a significant influence from “team Toyama,” a group that formed spontaneously through collaboration among chefs in the prefecture. Tanaka said, “For around 10 years, I’d often gotten together after work with chefs working in Toyama Prefecture. The group consists mainly of chefs at fine-dining restaurants, including Eiji Taniguchi — this was before he opened L’évo. The types of cuisine were all different — French, Italian, Japanese and so on. Occasionally we’d have a sort of workshop — for instance, we brought pates and tasted and compared them. It was really stimulating.” If the “team Toyama” circle expands through Tanaka’s efforts, Toyama Prefecture’s standing as a “place to go” will surely continue to rise.

Of the 10 establishments honored each year as Destination Restaurants, the representative Destination Restaurant of the Year has previously tended to be one with an imposing back story that involves engaging with producers or ingredients under difficult circumstances such as limited transportation or natural disaster. In contrast, Himawari Shokudo 2, the Destination Restaurant of the Year 2025, occupies a convenient location just a 10-minute walk fromzand neither runs its own farm nor pastures animals.

On learning that he had been awarded the title, owner-chef Hozumi Tanaka looked perplexed and said: “Do I really deserve it? I don’t even have the kind of deep connections with producers that other chefs do.” Actually, Tanaka communicates closely with a producer who gathers mountain vegetables and hunts wild game, and has even asked farmers to plant Italian vegetables, which are still uncommon in Toyama Prefecture.

But it is true that chefs in Toyama Prefecture have elevated their approaches to ingredients and cuisine to levels that inspire this sort of modesty in chef Tanaka. Last year, Yoshiki Tsuji, one of the judges, said of Destination Restaurants: “The point is not just to praise chefs. It’s to celebrate region-specific cuisine while honoring chefs rooted in the area.”

Actually, Toyama Prefecture is home to two of the restaurants that have been selected as Destination Restaurant of the Year over the past five years — Cuisine régionale L’évo in 2021, the year when Destination Restaurants was launched, and Himawari Shokudo 2 in 2025 — and the prefecture is solidifying its position as one of Japan’s foremost “culinary regions.” This writer has visited various dining establishments in Toyama Prefecture for both work and leisure, and heard Himawari Shokudo 2 praised as a “really great” restaurant by chefs in each location.

Tanaka has a rather unusual biography. Born in Toyama, he had long led a life unrelated to cuisine. “In my 20s I saved up money doing work in the architecture field, and then I wandered around Europe,” he said. “I was traveling on a tight budget and making my own meals. I was such a bad cook that I put an egg in the microwave and caused an explosion. At the time, I was interested in the cultures of different countries — history, architecture, art — and had no interest in food. But when I was 22, I tried bistecca (Tuscan-style steak) in a trattoria in Florence. I was astonished by its delicious flavor, and realized that food is culture, too. At the same time, I sensed that food has a kind of magic that makes people happy, and that was one reason I decided to pursue a culinary career.”

Later, following the death of his mother, Tanaka set his sights on Italy at the age of 27 in order to become a chef. “It turned out that I couldn’t work there because I didn’t speak Italian,” he said, “so I returned to Toyama. But I didn’t know where to work in Toyama, so three days later I went to Tokyo. I worked in Italian restaurants there for about 10 years. The charcoal-grilling methods I learned at Ristorante Terauchi, which was located in Nishi-Azabu, are still a foundation of my cuisine.”

On a recent day, the main dish at Himawari Shokudo 2 was charcoal-grilled roast of Owara Clean Pork, a local branded pork variety. The grilled meat was served as is, accompanied only by deep-fried taranome (angelica tree shoots). It is this very simplicity that makes the chef’s skill and sophistication stand out. In addition to fish and vegetables from Toyama Prefecture, mountain bounties such as wild vegetables and wild game meat also feature in his cuisine.

Tanaka said: “I receive a portion of the wild vegetables and deer meat obtained by Mokutaro, the brother of the restaurant’s sous-chef, Kaede Ishiguro. But at my restaurant I don’t make a particular selling point of food products from the mountains. To me, those are the signature ingredients of L’évo, which is situated really deep in the mountains of Toyama. Many tourists who visit Toyama Prefecture go around to various restaurants in the prefecture, so I try to serve ingredients and dishes that don’t duplicate the ones served at other places.”

Among the Destination Restaurants judges, the following comment was heard in regard to Tanaka, who sometimes takes a self-effacing attitude in relation to other chefs: “He’s a chef with innate talent. Let’s hope that receiving this award inspires him to recognize [his own skills] more and step into the spotlight.” On the other hand, it was only recently that he was able to relocate and acquire a larger kitchen, as well as the latest cooking equipment. “There’s more that I’m able to do now, and the range of my cooking has expanded,” said Tanaka. Indeed, Himawari Shokudo has just embarked on its “season 2” and begun a new story. That story’s culmination is yet to come.