Tempura Tenko Honten

Provenance is key to the culinary philosophy at this Michelin-starred tempura restaurant in Hiroshima. Kenichi and Takahiro Higuchi, the father and son team who man the kitchen, pay close attention to the quality of the ingredients and the areas they come from. This means incredibly fresh seasonal tempura dining, with delicious seafood like fugu (blowfish), conger eel, shrimp, and cutlassfish. The father trained at a top tempura shop in Tokyo for 13 years to gain the skills necessary to cook Michelin-starred deep-fried bites, and now he’s in the process of passing his knowledge onto his prodigious son. Thankfully, they can both speak a good level of English, which means that foreigners sitting at their counter can get the full experience of upscale Japanese dining, which focuses so heavily on interpersonal relations. A meal at their eight-seat tempura counter typically consists of sashimi appetizers followed by piece after piece of delicious, crispy tempura — seasoned with tempura sauce, lemon, seaweed salt, or even truffle salt from Paris — with matcha tea to finish. If you like your meals with a harder drink, they also have a nicely-stocked menu of sake, wine, beer, and champagne to enjoy throughout.