Morning in Ohara is calm and clear. Cutting a dashing figure behind the wheel of his red sports car is Hisao Nakahigashi, proprietor of Sojiki Nakahigashi, a restaurant in Ginkakuji-michi on the banks of the Shirakawa River. In his bright orange scarf and black hat, Nakahigashi hardly looks like a man about to enter the fields.
Before setting out, Nakahigashi dons sunglasses made from buffalo horn. ‘When you’re looking for the tastiest herbs, it helps to look through the eyes of a cow’, he quips with a grin.
Nakahigashi was born and raised in Hanase, in the rural hill valleys north of Kyoto . He has known and loved the hills and fields since boyhood, so his bucolic habits and perspectives come naturally.
In his school yearbook, Nakahigashi wrote, ‘I’d like to go back to the kind of life where a fallen tree is my chair or table; a job where I can breathe life back into something.’ ‘Nowadays,’ he says, ‘while I work with plants and vegetables that have been cut down or uprooted, I feel that, by cooking with them, I’m breathing life back into them. It seems like that youthful wish has come true.’
Nakahigashi heads to the hills of Ohara every morning. The practice began when he’d just opened his restaurant and found that when he talked to farmers , their words touched him deeply. The rugged landscapes and pastoral scenes he views every morning give Nakahigashi inspiration for his cooking, an inspiration which he passes on to his diners. Sojiki Nakahigashi spins its menu from the qi, the spiritual energy, and the feelings its chef gets from the mountains.
No sooner do his diners leave his restaurant behind them then, somehow, they fill with energy for the next day’s activities, breaking naturally into smiles. Like the seasons in Ohara, Hisao Nakahigashi’s cuisine is always changing. Both are something you’ll want to experience.
