What's in a name? Poetry, prose and place. And for Masato and Midori Shirakawa, the husband-and-wife team who opened the elegantly understated Il Garage just over a year ago in central Kyoto, it's a bit of all three.
Midori, 41, a professionally trained pastry chef, grew up in the building that houses Il Garage. The second-floor restaurant was formerly a mahjong parlor. The ground floor was, and still is, a car garage. And the reason for the Italian name? Well, the couple spent five years living and working in Italy — and everything sounds better in Italian.
"At first we were trying to think of a fancy name (for the restaurant)," chef Masato, 42, says. "But then we thought perhaps simple is best. Also, I thought (the name) would (help) our customers to find the restaurant."