Arab News Japan

MAIBARA: A restaurateur has transformed a 120-year-old house into a weekend soba restaurant that’s drawn steady media attention and long lines, and he’s welcoming foreigners as guests or staff.

TANIGUCHI Ryuichi is also renovating four 150-year-old structures into three guesthouses and plans a farm-to-table café. He is trying to preserve the village’s 1,500-year heritage, landscape, and heirloom vegetables. 

With a declining population of just 200 residents in 50 households, he is aiming to create jobs in the area and welcomes foreign staff. He even champions friendly ties with Chinese visitors despite broader political tensions. 

The area around Maibara in central Japan is famed for over 1,200 medicinal herbs on the limestone slopes of Mount Ibuki. Heirloom crops such as Ibuki soba (buckwheat) and Ibuki daikon (radish) are grown around the mountain. 

Taniguchi began growing Ibuki soba and Ibuki daikon after leaving his job at the Maibara City Office. His soba restaurant Kyujiro serves dishes using ingredients he grows himself. With approximately 2,500 visitors a year, it is popular with overseas tourists and younger people from urban areas. 

“I would like to create jobs and stimulate the local economy by taking advantage of local resources, to protect rural areas from decline,” he says.

Ibuki soba was being grown in the area around 1,000 years ago. The large temperature difference between day and night around the base of Mt. Ibuki is said to be a climate that helps bring out the sweetness and umami of crops.

After a decline in production of Ibuki soba, in 1995 local farmers and Shiga Prefecture worked together to restart production using seeds donated from the surrounding areas. In 2019, “Ibuki Zairaisoba” was registered as a geographical indication in a successful revival of the local brand.