When the news came through this summer that one of our favorite chefs, Kazuhiko Kinoshita, was closing his eponymous restaurant in Hatsudai and moving to fresh pastures, it came as no surprise to us. In fact the move was well overdue.
It wasn't just that he had long outgrown those cramped and well-scuffed premises. It wasn't just that he had become so popular that securing a reservation had become increasingly impossible. The real reason why Kinoshita badly needed to find a new address was that the setting was frankly not good enough to match the excellence of his cooking.
We are long-time fans of Kinoshita, ever since his early days at Bistro Vela, an unlovely eatery below the concrete station concourse at Yoyogi Uehara. It was after he had set up under his own name, though, that he really won our affections.