The Kamiari family descend from the Jinzai clan, castle-holding retainers of the Sengoku warlord Amago, and came to Chōfu under the Mōri. In the Kyōhō era they served the domain as money changers; later the house kept the domain's inn and its table, and when the domains were dissolved it passed to the family, which counts Meiji 4 — 1871 — as its founding year. Three centuries of trade in all, under the name Kogushiya since the early Shōwa years; the house was patronized by Takasugi Shinsaku and General Nogi. Today the sixth master, Kamiari Kuniyuki, stands in the kitchen himself.
The fugu
The fish is wild torafugu from Haedomari, the market where most of Japan's fugu changes hands, sold by the old sleeve-auction — and of that wild catch, only the top one to five percent enters this kitchen. The season runs from mid-September to early May: northern fish early, Seto Inland Sea fish heavy with shirako from November. The tessa is aged to the day and laid, 150-some petals, across a 40-centimeter dish; the ponzu is pressed from five thousand bitter oranges and rested a year; the scallions are Yasuoka negi, grown for fugu. Grilled fins go into the hirezake. In summer the house turns to Kitaura sea urchin, ayu from the Fushino river, and hamo.
The house
The building is a sukiya-style house of 1949 — the Edo structures burned in Chōfu's great fire, though the scrolls and furnishings survived — with a tended garden visible from every room. It won Shimonoseki's first cityscape prize. Dining is in private tatami rooms only, and the ryokan lineage lives on: overnight stays with dinner from ¥30,800. Chōfu's samurai quarter is a short walk.
Save it for
November, when the Seto fish carry shirako and the whole argument for wild fugu sits on one table in a room of your own — or the traveler who wants a castle-town night in a three-century merchant house.
