Trattoria Buona Fortuna

The weather was too windy for sailing this weekend, so today we went out for lunch at Trattoria Buona Fortuna Italian Restaurant. This was our second visit together (Kimie had been there before with colleagues from work). Located across the street from the south side of Kashima Jingu shrine, in the heart of the city, Buona Fortuna is in a two story building with the owner's residence on the second floor. The husband is chef and his wife waits the tables. With just the two of them, they are kept quite busy. (horizontal pics can be enlarged by clicking on them).


Decor is a combination of recycled items (crockery, chairs, stained glass windows), antiques, and homemade crafts (cushions, coverlets) which fits with the popular modern Japanese esthetic which cherishes "kawaii" - cuteness. One might be tempted to call this esthetic "kitsch", but I think that would be a mistake. It isn't trying to imitate anything, or be pretentious, but rather mixes various elements to create an atmosphere that is homey, fun, old, new, renewed and of course, kawaii.

A print on the wall incorporates the restaurant's name.

We had a corner room to ourselves today and sat by the window looking out on a patio and the back yard.




For lunch we started with onion soup, then a salad, spaghetti, and desert with coffee/tea. I had spaghetti with eggplant and for desert, banana chiffon cake. Kimie chose spaghetti with tuna and had lemon chiffon cake with honey for desert.

Sponge cake, ice cream, and cookies.... Not exactly on my diet, but for Sunday lunch out I play my "Get out of dieting free" card. ;^)