Chugokusai Naramachi Kuko

It’s impossible to imagine Nara’s dining scene without top-contender Chugokusai Naramachi Kuko, which swings between a double-starred Michelin restaurant and a part-time farm. This couple-run eatery is a lesson in sustainability that walks the talk. In the morning, the owner-chef Miyamoto Kazuyuki harvests “yamato yasai” — Nara’s high-quality greens — and Chinese root vegetables from the restaurant garden, located in the mountainous area close to Naramachi. Produce picked on the day is churned into beautiful, fun-flavored Cantonese and Sichuan dishes with fine-dining finesse. Appetizers arrive in stunning porcelain mamezara with teasings of Japan-grown ingredients, which might include Yamato chicken, bonito tossed with douchi sauce, spiced-up conger eel and green beans with Chinese pickles. Miyamoto’s cooking relies on fermented seasoning and punchy Sichuan sauces — 72 seasonings sit in his kitchen — but his culinary ethos circles around a balanced meal that nourishes. The day’s healthy soup becomes a prelude to the assured lineup of dim sum; during the summer, he throws in cucumber, barley, dried shiitake, scallops, and shrimps into the stock to boost immunity and fatigue-fighting properties. Dim sums land on the table in petite steaming baskets: xiao long bao made from Yamato pork, herb-laced shumai, buns pumped with shrimp and scallops with homemade XO sauce and fragrant lo mai gai (sticky glutinous rice). It’s a long road from produce to plate, but it’s a journey well worth it: Chugokusai Naramachi Kuko is one of the hardest restaurants to snag a reservation. Chugokusai Naramachi Kuko received one Michelin star and a Green Star in 2024.