Sonoba

Through the broad front window on Tominokōji, the first thing to catch the eye might be a row of little ceramic cups. Behind them are timber tables and the scuffed walls of a former warehouse. Kento Yoshida and his friends did up the place with salvaged materials. They left enough of the old walls showing to make you wonder what used to be stored here.

Yoshida learnt to make soba in Shigaraki, a pottery town, and took up ceramics himself. During the pandemic he grew buckwheat in the hills of Keihoku. Kneading clay reminded him of working noodle dough, and when he opened Sonoba in 2023 with his university friend, the potter So Andrew Saito, they gave each job its own room. The tables went in between. Some of the pottery still ends up at lunch.

The chilled mori soba comes on a wicker tray. The noodles have a faint green tint and are made entirely of buckwheat, which Yoshida mills himself. In summer he has served them in cold kombu-and-bonito broth with lemongrass, makrut lime leaf and thin slices of sudachi. A bowl like that makes excellent sense in a Kyoto August, when even choosing a seat in the shade can feel like enough work for the day.