Hakone Kawadoko Gyunabe Ukon

A wildly popular activity in summer, kawadoko (literally “riverbed”) dining puts guests on a raised platform by a river, letting the sight and sound of rushing water rinse away the oppressive heat. The first and only kawadoko-style restaurant in Hakone, Gyunabe Ukon is expectedly thronged with summer visitors — by default, all seating in the restaurant is riverside seating (guests can request indoor seating, but these requests are understandably very rare). Nonetheless, the restaurant is equally busy in the autumn and well into winter, when the maple groves along the Sukumo River turn into brilliant bursts of red and yellow. Hakone’s brisk autumn chill also makes it the best time for guests to drape themselves in one of Ukon’s hanten coats, slip beneath the covers of a kotatsu and tuck into a bubbling helping of Gyunabe Ukon’s famous hotpot. The restaurant sources its kuroge wagyu beef from all over Japan, pairing it with locally grown vegetables from Kanagawa Prefecture. Its mountain yam is grown on Ukon’s own farm in the outskirts of Odawara City, and is particularly renowned for its fragrance and texture. That said, texture is particularly important in Gyunabe Ukon’s culinary philosophy. Its warishita broth incorporates a mixture of mountain yam and egg to add texture and dimension. Even its meat sushi, crafted with premium ingredients like sea urchin, caviar and salmon roe, would be incomplete if not for Ukon’s homemade awa-shoyu, a delightfully fluffy mixture of meringue and soy sauce.