Mie opened in 1958, founded by Kohagura Tomi, born in Shuri in 1912, and in 1960 it moved into the house it still keeps — a red-tiled, lime-plastered wooden residence in Kumoji that now stands alone among Naha's office towers, awarded the city's Landscape Prize in 1996. Her cooking descends from the circle around Baron Shō Jun, fourth son of the last Ryukyuan king, through the prewar study group that worked to record the kingdom's cuisine. Her brother, the essayist Kohagura Yasuyoshi, was the house's second keeper. In 2016, to save it, Mie passed into the care of the Okinawa Churashima Foundation — recipes, lacquerware and documents preserved and studied while the kitchen cooks on. The prefecture certifies the house under its program for successors of Ryukyu cuisine.
What you eat
The court cuisine of the Ryukyu kingdom. On the top deigo course comes the tundabun, a lacquered presentation tray of seven works — decorated cuttlefish, kajiki rolled in kombu, three kamaboko of gurukun, pōpō crêpes rolled around pork miso, burdock wrapped in pork — and, at the close, tofuyo, taken a grain at a time. In between: minudaru, pork loin steamed under black sesame; rafute simmered half a day in awamori and soy; and the nakami soup, pork innards washed dozens of times until the broth runs clear, scented with island pepper.
The house
Six private rooms and nothing else — thirty-eight seats, in rooms for one to twelve guests that join to seat twenty-two. Lunch runs 11:30 to 15:00, dinner 18:00 to 22:00; on Sundays, Mondays, the first three days of the New Year and the old-calendar Obon, the house rests. Children twelve and under are not seated. It is five minutes on foot from Kencho-mae station, and there is no parking.
Booking
The telephone is the only door, and it is answered in Japanese. Even one guest is given a room of their own, and the house may end its day early once the rooms are spoken for. Our desk places the call.
