During my stay in Japan, my mother and I went to Osaka Umeda downton for shopping and had a lunch at a relatively new Italian restaurant called
code kurkku + IL GHIOTTONE. They offer only pre-fix menu and use only fresh seasonal organic ingredients that are carefully selected. Their presentation of each dish was cleaver. For example, grissin in the glass light bulb with wild rice were neat.
Bread came in their custom-made wooden box. It's made with cherry wood that their tables are also made with. Both focaccia and the other one (I forgot) were delicious.
A big onion came to the table. Inside was sweet onion soup with a jumbo sea scallop.
The inside of the crispy light filo wrap was sushi-grade fresh salmon. In fact cauliflower was a theme of this plate. Light green and purple colors were cauliflower. The paper-thin white things on greens were not pecorino cheese but fresh white cauliflower too.
On the plate, pasta and a glass globe filled with smoke... Once our waiter lifted up the globe, pleasant wooden smoke smell surrounded us. The inside of the globe was lightly smoked spring fish. With our own fork, toss the fish with pasta and turnip together and eat!
Rare Okinawa native pork that was perfectly pan-seared, rolled cabbage, white bean puree, and etc.
Now dessert time - airy strawberry tiramisu. It was a quite moderate portion...but we were nicely full at this point; believe or not, two spoon bites was right.
The pre-fix completed with a cup of tea (coffee for my mother).
Their dishes are obviously not typical Italian cuisine. It's very creative and playful. Delicious with surprises. My mother enjoyed the entire experience and so did I.
