Some restaurants are a room; L'évo is a journey. In December 2020, chef Eiji Taniguchi moved his kitchen out of a Toyama resort hotel and rebuilt it as an auberge deep in the mountain village of Toga — a lodge with rooms, reached by shuttle, wrapped in snow for much of the year.
What you eat
A course-only menu of what Taniguchi calls local gastronomy: the produce, game and wild plants of Toyama's highlands set against the seafood of Toyama Bay just beyond them. It is avant-garde but rooted — a chef cooking his own terrain, in the place that terrain comes from.
Why the trip is the point
With twenty-six seats, reservation-only access and a setting hours from the nearest hub, L'évo is among Japan's most acclaimed destination restaurants precisely because it refuses to be convenient. Most guests stay the night; the drive in, the quiet, and the mountains are part of the meal.
Getting in
Book the table, and the room, well ahead. From abroad the seats and the lodging are handled through separate Japanese systems — the kind of arrangement our desk exists to make painless.
