From the street, Tama gives little away. The uncluttered, contemporary facade — floor-to-ceiling glass, plain gray concrete steps, just enough wood that it doesn't feel too impersonal — suggests an uber-cool wine bar, or something a bit exclusive. That couldn't be further from the truth.
For more than a decade, Tama has been the place to come for one of Tokyo's more unusual menus, a unique and stylish hybrid that it calls Ryukyu-Chinese. It's a blend of Okinawa specialties, such as ashitebichi (pig's trotter) and chanpurū (stir-fried tofu, meat and vegetables), interspersed with Chinese classics like yodare-dori ("mouth-watering chicken"). There's nowhere else like it in the city — and certainly no restaurant serving Okinawan food with such a sense of style and attention to quality.
Owner-chef Fumihiro Tamayose was born and raised on the remote Okinawan island of Kuroshima. But one of his grandmothers hailed from Shanghai, so he grew up eating a mix of the two cuisines. Those are the flavors and ingredients that underpin his cooking at Tama.