Yuri Nomura is happy to be called a chef. And indeed she does regard food as a central way to share and express her ideas. But making food is only one part of what she does. Nomura is owner of hidden Harajuku oasis, restaurant Eatrip, found in a secret garden down a little alley behind a flower shop. She is also a documentary maker, book writer, creator of spaces and events, a radio DJ and someone who likes to stop and take time to cherish the small and simple things that make life worth living.

When I visit Eatrip to talk to Nomura she offers to make me breakfast. She arrives a few minutes late and as I wait, I’m struck by the gentle peaceful feeling of the restaurant, the lived-in spaciousness and gorgeous flowers, the light from the garden pouring in. She has squeezed talking to me in before a TV shoot, but arrives unflustered, smiling and welcoming. I watch her rustle up leftovers from the kitchen in a few minutes. Her graceful unhurried confidence is obvious. She talks happily and profers a perfectly arranged plate of avocado toast with ricotta cheese, homemade pistachio sauce, egg and chili. It is unbelievably good. When I talk to her about how busy she must be with so much going on she says, “I guess I’m not so busy compared to other people, my style is to take time…just to watch the beautiful things”.

Nomura is regarded as a champion of the ‘naturalist’ movement in food and lifestyle. She has worked at internationally renowned restaurants famed for this, notably Chez Panisse in San Francisco. But Nomura is more complex and considered than this label might imply. She has thought deeply about food and its preparation and consumption, not just absorbed a label.

Certainly she regards the quality of the produce, and her relationship with the producers as primary in her food. She visits many of them personally and enjoys long standing relationships with her ‘family of producers’, showcasing their seasonal products in her restaurant. This is not, however, something she feels needs to be explained in detail to customers, believing that giving too much information takes away from letting them having their own experience, from allowing the food to speak for itself. Which it resolutely does. Eatrip’s menu is simple but sophisticated, unfussy and incredibly well executed. It might entail grilled grouper with red wine and citrus sauce, spinach and quinoa with soft squid or honey roasted pork with green pea and mushroom sauce. A seasonal fruit galette or pavlova. A natural wine. Everything will feel relaxed but perfect.

Equally important though for Nomura, is the creation of a space and an experience for people to be a part of. She has thought a lot about food and what it can give to people. She talks about the mood and the hands of the people preparing it. The way it is taken in by the body. She also pays great attention to making a space in which people, both customers and staff, can feel relaxed and calm, to slow down and let the food do the talking. Consequently, Eatrip is both homely and elegant. Nomura herself says that when things are too perfect one can’t relax, that she needs “space to find my own feeling”. She feels that everything in the restaurant contributes to and is part of the eating experience. The music, the flowers, the table setting, the ceramics, everything is part of a whole. Even the walk in down the lane and through the flower shop is part of it. Nothing feels contrived or ostentatious though, more like you have arrived at a very charming and welcoming friend’s place, like you have dropped off the streets of Harajuku into a gentler, lovelier place.

I talked to Nomura about how she came to think this way about food and living and she refers to both her family, and her desire as a young person to be different from them, to escape. Her mother is a highly trained traditional cooking teacher. Nomura says that while she took it for granted growing up, her mother’s food was always “very very special, it was beautiful”. She grew up with people coming to the house regularly to learn from and eat with her mother, also famous for her exquisite traditional etiquette and welcome. As a teenager, Nomura’s appetite to be different took her overseas and exposed her to the contemporary Western food world and to many different ideas about food and eating. It is the balance of these influences you can feel in her philosophy and food. Nomura maintains many connections across the world and regards this ‘flow of food’ across countries and cultures as crucial. There is a huge and wonderful international food conversation going on that she wishes to share with you at Eatrip.

After we talked for a while, Nomura gets up to change the record. As she does, we both look out the window and notice a large, strange, blue door lying in the garden. “Wait, is that a door?” she says laughing. She seems unperturbed by its mysterious appearance in her restaurant and I think again that the balance she strikes between composure and acceptance, even delight in the unexpected; her calm flexibility, easygoing warmth and lightheartedness are exactly what make Eatrip such a wholly enjoyable place to eat.

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eatrip restaurant

1F-6-31-10 Jingumae Shibuya-ku Tokyo Japan 150-0001

Dinner
Open Tuesdays through Saturdays
18:00～24:00 / 23:00 LO（Mon & Sun Closed）

Lunch
Open Saturdays and Sundays
Saturday 11:30～15:00 / 14:00 LO
Sunday 11:30～17:00 / 15:30 LO

For reservation: 03-3409-4002
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All photos by Satoru Tada
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Vaughan

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