Arriving at erba da nakahigashi, you might think you have stumbled across a plush, exclusive Japanese restaurant, rather than one serving Italian cuisine. The walls leading down to the basement premises are finished in lacquer and the dining room has no tables, just a compact open kitchen with a wooden counter. There are only eight seats, each set with chopsticks.

This is a classic kappo-style restaurant, the type where customers sit and watch as the chef prepares course after elaborate course of exquisite washoku (traditional Japanese cuisine). But there is one reassuring clue that the cuisine is modern Italian: the large, handsome bacon slicer in bright Ferrari red standing in the center of the counter.

This intersection of influences is fitting. Chef Toshifumi Nakahigashi, the man who operates that equipment, carving slivers of the finest San Daniele prosciutto, hails from Kyoto, where his father runs one of the city's most respected restaurants.