Down in Ginza, we got another glimpse of the future. This version, though, is hushed and sophisticated, with waitresses in kimono. It feels very traditional — in all but one respect. Instead of tuna and eel on your sushi, you get mushrooms and vegetables. Welcome to Nagamine, Tokyo's first vegetable kaiseki restaurant.
The idea is simple but profound. Japan's traditional multicourse cuisine has always been based on the bounty of the vegetable kingdom. Increasingly, though, kaiseki meals have become loaded up with meat and seafood, with vegetables, herbs and mushrooms treated as mere seasonal accents. Nagamine winds the clock back, but in contemporary style.
The credentials are impeccable. The parent company is a long-established produce wholesaler based in Tsukiji, not far from the legendary fish market. The restaurant sits discreetly in a basement close to Higashi-Ginza, doing little to advertise its presence save for the carefully arranged display of vegetables outside the noren curtain.