Who'd have thought it? Vegetables have become hip. Forget those premium cuts of chu-toro tuna and gourmet meals of beer-pampered wagyu beef: The really happening restaurants these days are those that can offer bespoke produce shipped straight from the farm.
Inevitably, there's lots of potential for pretense. In the glitzy parts of town, some establishments even boast certified vegetable sommeliers. Out in Naka-Meguro, however, attitudes are considerably more relaxed, as demonstrated at the excellent new N _ 1155.
This friendly diner/restaurant, which opened back in July, occupies the bottom two floors of a new building, with racks of farm-grown vegetables arrayed outside the front door, each box identified by the name of the prefecture and the farmer who supplied it. Owner Yousuke Kikuchi sports jeans and a sweat shirt, and the serving staff wear black T-shirts emblazoned with that acronymic name, N _ 1155 (N stands for natural, of course; the numbers are the address; and it's pronounced, as in English, "eleven-fifty-five").