When Masato Miyazawa opened his first restaurant here in Kyoto, he was 32.
Called Jiki Miyazawa, it's a paean to chakaiseki, a cuisine that combines two things he had poured more than a decade of his life into: the ebb and flow of the tea ceremony, and the ornate seasonal cuisine that accompanies it.
More than his craft, it was Miyazawa's age that stuck out for many here in this conservative and tradition-abiding city. Hadn't he skipped a few rungs on the ladder in his hurry to establish his own restaurant? For Miyazawa though, this was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.