To reach the city of Hachinohe from Tokyo, even the fastest shinkansen takes the better part of three hours. It’s a long ride — a distance of some 400 kilometers in all, almost as far north as you can go on the Pacific coast of Honshu.
But there are numerous reasons for making that trip, most of them pulled from the nearby ocean. As the second-largest city in Aomori Prefecture, Hachinohe boasts one of the nation's biggest fishing ports. That means you can expect to find some of the finest and freshest seafood, especially at the city’s wholesale outlets and renowned early-morning markets.
This was one of the primary considerations that spurred chef Ryohei Ikemi to move to the city almost 15 years ago with his wife, Etsuko, who is both a trained pastry chef and sommelier. They were confident that Hachinohe, her hometown, would be a receptive location for the high-quality Italian cuisine that is Ikemi’s specialty.
They even had a name chosen for their restaurant: Casa del Cibo — "The House of Good Food."
These days, Ikemi and his wife serve some of the most sophisticated and satisfying cuisine in the prefecture, and his 10-course, seafood-driven omakase (chef’s choice) menus draw customers from near and far. Success did not come easily, however. In fact their path to this point has been a lot less straightforward than they could ever have imagined.
Northeastern promise
A native of Kanagawa Prefecture, Ikemi initially trained in French cuisine, which included a stint abroad in France’s culinary capital of Lyon. But after returning to Japan, he switched his focus to Italian cooking, which was enjoying massive popularity.
He moved to Tokyo so he could work at the Ginza branch of the Florence-based Enoteca Pinchiori — at that time, the most highly rated specialist in Tuscan cuisine in the capital. He then went on to the kitchen of Da Noi, a small but well-loved (and still sadly missed by those who ate there) neighborhood restaurant in the Nishiazabu district.
Having found the right location in Hachinohe, Ikemi and his wife were set to launch Casa del Cibo in the spring of 2011 when northeast Japan was rocked by the largest earthquake in a century. Their freestanding house and restaurant-to-be escaped the worst of the damage, but the ensuing tsunami caused massive disruption to the nearby port area.
Bouncing back from disaster
With the entire coastline devastated and the regional economy in tatters, it was the worst possible time to start a new venture. But turning back was not an option for them: Casa del Cibo opened within six weeks of the disaster.
Despite the gloom hanging over the region, both emotional and literal, the venture was well-received. The arrival of a new Italian restaurant with a Tokyo-trained chef helped boost people’s spirits. Ikemi says he made sure his menu was both accessible and affordable, offering cheap, cheerful three-course dinners — a starter, pasta and main dish for just ¥2,800.
"It wasn’t the menu I really wanted to make, or even the kind of dishes," he explains. "I had to serve the kind of food local people wanted and were expecting."
At that time, there were no other Italian restaurants in Hachinohe — only places that served spaghetti with Japanese inflections. Ikemi initially found it hard to bridge the gap between his cuisine and local expectations, but the breakthrough came when he took part in a two-month citywide PR event in which Ikemi served his own Italian version of bouillabaisse.
Made with whatever fish and molluscs were available, it was warming, satisfying and enough to put Casa del Cibo on the map with the city’s residents.
While the restaurant gradually built up a solid base in the Hachinohe area, Ikemi was able to develop a network of suppliers in other parts of the prefecture, specifically the agricultural areas and fertile fruit orchards around inland Lake Towada.
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic might have signaled another major bump in the road for Casa del Cibo. Instead, it was the opportunity Ikemi was waiting for. In 2021, he closed to give the interior of the restaurant a total refurbishment.
Now, he offers chef’s table dinners for groups of up to four people at the sleek, gunmetal-gray counter of his open kitchen. In addition, he has installed two semiprivate rooms for parties of up to eight — plus a generous cellar to allow for an enhanced wine-pairing program curated by Etsuko.
Aomori produce, Italian finesse
Typically, Ikemi will open dinner with a warming zuppa (soup) featuring vegetables from Towada. And more than likely, the meal will close with a gelato made from local Aomori Kyogoku apples picked on the outskirts of Hachinohe.
Along the way, he will include a wide range of appetizers, such as kegani horsehair crab meat cooked with Towada eggplant and served with buffalo milk mozzarella and crisp shards of deep-fried eggplant.
There will be a couple of pastas: perhaps a chilled saffron tagliolini with slivers of squid and celery; or troccoli, a chunky, toothsome Puglia-style spaghetti that Ikemi imbues with abalone liver and serves with the meat of abalone and whelks.
If you’re lucky with your timing, Ikemi may also serve his grilled risotto, a polenta-like tranche of rice topped with wild unagi (freshwater eel) and strands of deep-fried burdock. Paired with a sanshō pepper sauce, it’s one of the standout dishes in his repertoire.
From the Tsugaru Peninsula, Ikemi sources farm-raised boar — a more substantial and flavorful meat than ordinary pork and which he can serve rare, which is not permitted for game meats caught in the wild. Adding a sauce prepared from anchovies, capers and egg yolk, he finishes it with shards of Parmesan cheese.
He serves medallions of local monkfish on a base of ciuppin, a take on bouillabaisse that originates in Liguria, the region around Genoa. And he produces a superb ballotine of Gin no Kamo, a local breed of duck, which he wraps in a remarkable layer of dried chrysanthemum petals and pairs with a black garlic sauce.
All are outstanding dishes — so much so that were they served in Tokyo the meal would likely command close to twice its ¥14,300 price.
From the outset, Ikemi has always kept in mind his underlying philosophy: "If the food is good, customers will come." It is a mantra that has kept Casa del Cibo afloat through the hard times. Now, it is drawing customers from all around Tohoku, Tokyo and even outside Japan.
However, Ikemi has not forgotten his local clientele who helped keep the dream alive. Just once a week on Saturdays, Casa del Cibo opens for lunch, offering an abbreviated version of his dinner menu at an even more attractive price (¥10,000) which is aimed at — and restricted to — those who live in Hachinohe or its close vicinity.