An aquarium inside a cave

— The room, divided —

Pillars between the windows

The rockwork is not a backdrop: it divides the room, window from window, table from table. You eat in the shadow of the pillar, lit by the water beside it — tank light shafting past stone, table by table.

— The daylight edges —

Shoji room and garden arch

Daylight exists only at the edges: a second room of timber floors and shoji paper screens with a garden glimpse, and outside, a stone arch thick with roses and potted plants over stone steps. The cave is the meal; the daylight rooms are how you arrive.

— What the photographs show —

At the tank-wall table

What the photographs show on the tables, captioned only and never offered as dishes: sashimi served in a shell-shaped bowl, grilled scallops in their shells, a sushi box/set, oysters, sushi rolls. No dish names or prices are asserted from the photographs.

— Linger —

Watching the tank

The visit ends the way the room asks it to: seated between pillars, the spread finished, watching fish move behind the glass while the lamps stay lit table by table.

The room in photographs