Niigata’s Shintaku makes brilliant comeback after fire

Murakami, located in northern Niigata Prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast, is a small coastal Niigata city of just under 55,000 whose historic atmosphere includes the ruins of Murakami Castle, the city’s symbol, and the Wakabayashi Family Home, a samurai residence designated an Important Cultural Property. Its old black fences harken back to its days as a castle town, but such views grew marred as concrete block walls increased after World War II. Since 2002, however, residents of all ages have joined forces in a volunteer beautification project funded by donations.

Situated in a corner of the city is the gastronomic Japanese restaurant Shintaku. Its predecessor, the traditional restaurant Kinrinkaku, opened in 1867, and its name was subsequently changed. Today the restaurant is run by fifth-generation owner-chef Shinsuke Yamagai and his younger brother Ryota, who create the dishes, and their wives, who are in charge of service. The restaurant’s creative and original cuisine has attracted attention, and diners are now visiting from all over the country and even from overseas. But there was serious hardship along the way.

“In 2005, the restaurant burned down,” said Shinsuke, who at the time was working as a chef in the family establishment after training in Kyoto. “Not just the restaurant — everything, including tableware passed down through generations, became unusable.”

Before the fire, Shintaku was a traditional restaurant with a 140-mat second-floor grand hall accommodating up to 100 people. It hosted splendid banquets that even featured geisha.

Shinsuke explained, “My parents said they wanted to re-create the same type of traditional restaurant. But with the opportunity of the renewal in 2006, we decided to transform it into a fine-dining restaurant concentrating on cuisine, with a counter as the main focus, rather than the sort of social gathering place it was before.”

At that point Shinsuke teamed up with Ryota, who had also trained in Kyoto and was working in a different job. The brothers undertook the restaurant’s reconstruction and gradually shifted the focus of the cuisine.

“In the past, Shintaku served a course menu with all types of salmon dishes, featuring the salmon that Murakami is known for,” said Shinsuke. “We also sourced ingredients from other prefectures, with the aim of using excellent products. But we realized that everything we needed was actually produced in Murakami.”

Indeed, Murakami abounds in delicious ingredients. In addition to salmon caught in the Miomote River, there is masu salmon in the spring, iwagaki oysters and sweetfish in the summer and blackthroat sea perch and snow crab in the winter. Murakami beef is available year-round. Murakami is Japan’s northernmost tea-growing region, and the area also produces sake and wine, and even miso and soy sauce. In addition, Ryota obtained a hunting license and set up a meat-processing facility on the property. In autumn and winter, the restaurant serves wild boar and other types of fresh game meat. Thus it came about that Murakami products now comprise 90% of Shintaku’s ingredients.

The dishes are created through an exchange of ideas between Shinsuke and Ryota. Even with traditional Japanese methods as a foundation, their cooking, which makes the most of its ingredients, results in original dishes found nowhere else. It is this kind of cuisine that serves as a “tourism ambassador” conveying the attractions of Murakami to the world.