Soul food: new Osaka restaurant pairs ingredients with spirituality
Shinon Washoku Senryu restaurant aims to bring the mortal closer to the divine by weaving Japanese spirituality into its cuisine
I’m sitting on the tiny second floor of Shinon Washoku Senryu, a newly opened restaurant tucked under the train tracks leading into Osaka Station, one of the largest transport terminals in the world.
In spite of its quotidian surroundings, the restaurant has grand ambitions to reintroduce osagari (“leftovers” or “hand-me-downs”), the act of offering food to the gods at a shrine, who, after their meal, then leave it for worshippers to finish up.
Shinon traces its origins to the vision of second-generation restaurateur Yasuyuki Kibayashi. His relatives were masters of the koto, a traditional Japanese instrument, and with a deeply spiritual mother, Kibayashi was attuned to the nuances of Japanese culture and religion. As an adult, he assumed the mantle of patriarch, running the family’s izakaya business over five decades. Towards the end of his life, however, Kibayashi considered the act of eating in a spiritual light.
Inspired, his son and successor, Yoshinori Kibayashi, travelled to Ise Jingu, one of the most important Shinto shrines in Japan, to seek out a priest to name the new culinary concept. Shinon Washoku was born, its name translating to “divine grace” and “Japanese cuisine”.