Tsubaki Chaya
Grill Restaurant By The Sea In The Goto Islands
Tsubaki Chaya is a Japanese grill restaurant on the southern coast of Fukue Island in the Goto archipelago. Customers enjoy a beautiful view on the sea, as well as a barbecue-style cuisine called robata-yaki, with ingredients (fish, meat and vegetables) directly cooked at the table on charcoal grills.
Tsubaki Chaya or "camellia house" is a lovely Japanese restaurant perched on Fukue’s cliffs, with a nice sand-beach 🏖 at its foot. The venue serves a simple and delicious cuisine called robata-yaki, in which ingredients are cooked over charcoal grills, in the same fashion as a barbecue.
Lunch and dinner menus with a dozen dishes
Tsubaki Chaya’s choice is easy to understand, with full courses offered for lunch and dinner:
- At lunch: 2 menus available from ¥2,750 (~US$17.89) to ¥3,850 (~US$25.04);
- In the evening: 3 courses available at ¥7,700 (~US$50.08), ¥9,900 (~US$64.39) and ¥14,300 (~US$93.00).
Each set menu includes 10 to 14 varied dishes: seasonal fish, seafood, vegetables, meat, rice, udon noodles, sweet potato 🍠 and home-made ice cream. As for Goto’s udon noodles, they are a little bit different from the ones usually served in Japan, and characteristically thinner and firmer. In the evening, all courses include sashimi (thin slices of raw fish).
The ingredients served are extra fresh and grown on Fukue Island or in Nagasaki prefecture, providing balanced meals with subtle flavors.
Beautiful location on the coastline
The restaurant’s premises reflects the quality of its cooking: refined and very efficient. The restaurant’s room is decorated with wood of rather dark and warm hues, perfect to create an intimate atmosphere in the evening. In the daytime, the room is brightened by large windows with a view on the sea below, and thus offering a wonderful natural scenery, combining the intense blue of the water and the lush vegetation of the Goto Islands. On a clear weather day, the small Kuroshima and Yoko-jima islands at the end of the bay can be seen.
Regular tables and chairs are available for seating, but one can also settle in the Japanese-style, on a tatami floor, with a space to stretch legs under the table. The restaurant is away from Goto’s city-center and provides a peaceful atmosphere, for a slow meal to enjoy at the pace of the grilling.
Not far from Tsubaki Chaya, a local manufacture produces organic salt, rich in minerals and extracted from Goto sea water. Other specialties of the area are available such as camellia oil or yuzukosho, a fermented seasoning based on yuzu citrus, chili and salt: a delicious condiment whose pleasure is remaining well after the meal.