Restaurant Tokugetsuro

A Meiji-Era Restaurant East of Harimaya Bridge

Restaurant Tokugetsuro (料亭得月楼, Ryōtei Tokugetsurō) is a traditional Japanese restaurant in Minamiharimayacho, Kochi City, Kochi Prefecture, founded in 1870 under the name Yokiro, and six of its buildings were entered on the national register of Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in two rounds, in 2004 and 2016. The site lies one block south of the tram line at the eastern end of Harimaya Bridge, with streets running along both its northern and southern edges.

Under the Tosa domain, theatres and restaurants of this kind were suppressed for most of the Edo period. When the restrictions lifted after 1868, a pleasure quarter called Tamamizu Shinchi grew up along the Kagami River. Yokiro opened there, among the teahouses and playhouses, under a proprietor named Matsuoka Torahachi.

Torahachi did not compete on food alone. He introduced kaiseki course dining, gathered writers and painters for the first large ink-painting gathering held in Kochi, and hung calligraphy and paintings by well-known figures in his banquet hall. The house tradition holds that more than a thousand guests came through on busy nights.

The name changed in 1878. On the night of the harvest moon, a moon-viewing party was held for General Tani Tateki on his return from Kumamoto Castle, and two characters were taken from a Chinese couplet: a tower close to the water is the first to catch the moon. The restaurant has been Tokugetsuro ever since.

The older name survived in fiction. Miyao Tomiko set her novel Yokiro, about the demimonde of the early Showa years, in this house, and it was later filmed. The official register entries all begin with the word ryotei, restaurant, because these are the working rooms of a business that has never closed.

Why Six Buildings Were Registered Twelve Years Apart

Six structures at Restaurant Tokugetsuro carry registration: the main building, the guest room, the Koyo room, the Kiku room, the connecting corridor and the main gate. They did not arrive together. The main building and the guest room were registered on 8 November 2004; the remaining four followed on 25 February 2016. The registration numbers run 39-0155 and 39-0156 for the first pair, and 39-0280 to 39-0283 for the second group.

Five of the six were registered under the criterion for design that sets a standard. Only the main gate falls under a different one, for contribution to the historic landscape of the country. A gate that faces the street is judged on what it gives to the view along that street; the rooms behind it are judged on what happens inside.

Lined up by date of construction, the buildings show when this restaurant took its present shape. The guest room is the oldest at 1937, followed by the main building and the connecting corridor in 1950, the Koyo and Kiku rooms in 1957, and the main gate in 1959. Only the guest room predates the war, and even that was moved here from elsewhere in 1950.

The gap has a cause. Air raids on Kochi in July 1945 burned this quarter. The main building is reconstruction work put up after the fire, and nearly everything now standing on the site went up within about a decade of it.

One discrepancy is worth stating plainly. The restaurant's own website gives 2005 as the year of registration. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database records 8 November 2004, and this article follows the database.

Walking the Site, Gate to Garden

Entry to Restaurant Tokugetsuro is through the main gate, set toward the western end of the northern frontage. It is a low, wide gate, 5.9 metres across, with doors that slide back into pockets on either side. Beyond it stands the main building, its entrance marked by a gabled porch that projects toward the street.

The main building is a two-storey timber structure. Upstairs is a banquet hall of 80 tatami mats, or 100 if the surrounding veranda is counted. Its ceiling is boarded with single lengths of Yanase cedar.

The route toward the garden begins at the south side of the main building. A corridor runs south and widens at its far end into a waiting area, from which the way divides toward the guest room to the southeast and the Koyo room facing the garden. West of the Koyo room, a short passage with a storage closet leads to the Kiku room. The further in you go, the smaller the rooms become.

The garden these rooms face dates from the closing years of the Edo period. The house attributes it to a noted gardener of that era, though no name has been established. A pond lies in front of the Koyo room, with carp in it.

None of the six registered structures was arranged for viewing. They are rooms that still receive guests, a corridor that is still walked, a gate that still opens.

Potted Plums from Mid-January

The best-known annual event at Restaurant Tokugetsuro is its display of bonbai, plum trees grown in pots. Matsuoka Torahachi began collecting them around 1897, and the pots are set out in the tatami rooms each winter. Some of the specimens are said to be 200 to 300 years old.

Plums divide broadly into two lines. The yabai type keeps close to the wild original: thin branches, small flowers and leaves, hard wood that holds its shape even when the tree has died. The bungo type is a cross with apricot, with larger leaves and pink-tinged flowers, and wood soft enough that a trunk rotted to nothing but bark will still flower. Seeing the two side by side makes the single word plum feel inadequate.

The work runs all year. After the petals drop comes pruning, then feeding, then the wait for next season's buds. The proprietor is said to handle the shaping of the branches, the pest control and the watering himself.

The display opens in mid-January. Its closing date is given inconsistently on the restaurant's own website, early March on one page and around mid-March on another, and the flowering shifts from year to year, so it is worth checking before travelling. On days when the banquet hall is used, the pots are ranged around the edge of the room.

Booking, Hours and Getting There

Restaurant Tokugetsuro is a working restaurant. Seeing the buildings means booking a meal, and conversely a booking is all that is required: the official FAQ states plainly that first-time guests without an introduction are welcome. Every room is private, and no room charge is added.

Hours are 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. for lunch, with last orders at 1:30 p.m., and 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. in the evening. Mondays are the usual closing day apart from public holidays, but the specific closed dates for each month are announced in the news section of the website. Reservations and enquiries go to 088-882-0101. VISA, JCB and other credit cards are accepted.

There are steps inside the buildings. The house advises that wheelchairs may enter once the tyres have been wiped, and walking sticks once the tip has been wiped. Photography is not addressed on the website, so it is best raised when booking.

The tram is the quickest approach. Get off at Harimayabashi on the Tosaden Kotsu line and walk about three minutes east. The flat fare within the city zone is 230 yen for adults, set by the revision of 1 November 2024. From JR Kochi Station it is about a 15-minute walk, or two stops on the Sambashi line.

Drivers can use the affiliated car parks. Nangai Parking is open from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. and charges 300 yen for the first hour, then 100 yen per 30 minutes. A parking discount is offered against the bill, though the website describes it in two ways, as 300 yen in one place and as one hour in another, so this too is worth confirming at the time of booking. The address is 1-17-3 Minamiharimayacho, Kochi City.