Cusavilla / Erba da Nakahigashi

From the outside, this restaurant comes across as a high-class Japanese restaurant. However, while the cuisine is Italian, Chef Nakahigashi Toshifumi serves a carefully-curated omakase course meal using locally-sourced ingredients. The word "erba" in "erba da nakahigashi" — now Cusavilla — literally translates to "grass" in Italian. It's a homage to Chef Nakahigashi's father, whose own traditional restaurant revolves around natural greenery. It's because of this that there is such a great focus on the vegetable aspect at Cusavilla — a bilingual pun meaning "grass house" — as well. Chef Nakahigashi has since ceded his position in the kitchen to his apprentice Chef Chouchi Kanae, who studied under him since June 2021. But in the same spirit as Chef Nakahigashi and his father before him, Chef Chouchi continues to use up to 60 kinds of vegetables, herbs, and flowers in her cuisine. In line with her mentor's wishes — and in keeping with her culinary philosophy — she personally goes to farms to visit suppliers in far-off areas, ensuring that she knows the ins and outs of their cultivation and harvest. Chef Chouchi's skills are most evident in her preparation of domestic venison and pike, which are also sourced from local fishermen and hunters. In keeping with the restaurant's zero-waste philosophy, her signature dessert is the delightfully fluffy "wasteful meringue", made with ingredients that other chefs might toss aside. Located in the heart of the upscale Nishi Azabu district, where it keeps company with other high-end restaurants, Cusavilla stands out not just for its commitment to zero waste, reliance on local ingredients and masterful fusion of Japanese and Italian cuisine, but also for its relative affordability. Its standard lunch and dinner courses cost the same, at a hair over ¥11,000, while seasonal specialties are just slightly more expensive.