In the streets of Fukuoka, Japan, beneath the umbrella of the Midori Store, a small kitchen sends out aromas that seem to have bypassed the entire Asian continent to arrive straight from Nagpur. Step inside and you’ll find a Japanese chef ladling out fiery mutton gravies, smoky offal, and delicate phulkas — food so rooted in the heart of central India that it might puzzle anyone unfamiliar with the journey it took to get here. Takashi Takeshima, the man behind it, has become something of a culinary bridge, carrying the fierce, fragrant soul of Nagpur’s Saoji cuisine into the metronomic rhythms of a Japanese city.
Born in the kitchens of the Halba Koshti weaving community, who migrated from Madhya Pradesh to Nagpur in 1877, the Saoji cuisine is unapologetically spiced — a masala of more than thirty ingredients that are darkened with roasted coconut and poppy seeds, sharpened with black pepper and cloves, and bound together with linseed or jute oil. Once the working-class fuel of Nagpur, served in small, no-frills eateries, it is the kind of food that makes you sweat, tear up, and keep eating anyway. For Takashi, its story began on the internet, where late-night research into Indian recipes led him to images and descriptions of this brazen, brick-red curry. The more he read, the more it drew him in.
Curiosity took him first to India, where a twist of fate placed him in the care of the Bhagwagar family in Nagpur who opened their home to him, and arranged for him to train in a Saoji restaurant. When he returned in January 2025, it was for a wedding — a Parsi wedding, no less — that unfolded over three days of Chinese-themed welcome dinners, lavish blessing ceremonies, wild late-night dance parties, and banquets that ranged from delicate Parsi lunches to Kerala feasts. Takashi absorbed it all: the food, the rhythms, the hospitality, and somewhere between the Old Monk cocktails and the family dances, he decided to bring these flavours back to Japan.
Then came the real work. In Nagpur, Takashi trained in kitchens that locals called the best in the world. At Shankar Saoji Bhojnalay, he learned the balance of salt and spice that defines the most respected versions of the dish, stirring pots of mutton rassa, khur made from goat ankle, and the prized Gavrani chicken. He watched as crab and kheema kaleji simmered in heavy-bottomed vessels. At Om Shakti Saoji Bhojanalaya, he tasted a saltier edge, took home samples to measure, and noted how the extra brine altered the heat.
At Prachand’s Saoji, he found the salt-spice harmony he considered perfect, a balance he would later strive to recreate in Fukuoka. And in perhaps his most intimate lesson, an elderly sundari specialist invited him into a tiny evening kitchen hidden in an underground parking lot, teaching him to make the offal dish from scratch as curious onlookers crowded around the pot. It was after he presented his own masala blend to the seasoned Saoji masters, and they declared it “perfect”, that he knew he was ready to bring the cuisine to his own Phoenix Saoji Bhojanalay in Japan.
Back in Fukuoka, the lessons translated into a menu that reads like a love letter to Nagpur. His kitchen serves Saoji jhinga, bheja fry, varhadi baigan, fire mutton, smokey kaleji fry, sundari with phulka and jeera rice, khur, and chicken sukka, all anchored by a cup of kulhad chai to temper the heat. But the story doesn’t end there. The Parsi connections forged in Nagpur led him to explore that tradition as well, so now mutton dhansak shares space with patra ni macchi (steamed fish), Parsi akuri (an egg dish), sagan ni sev ( a sweet dish), mithoo dahi (sweet yoghurt) , and a raspberry soda from another special menu at his restaurant.
The discipline and reverence with which Japanese chefs approach their own culinary traditions is the same framework through which Takashi now works with Saoji and Parsi food. He is adamant that his role is not to adapt these cuisines to suit Japanese expectations, but to present the cuisine without reducing the heat or altering the seasoning. He believes that truly good food will be appreciated anywhere if made properly, and that niche cuisines can be successful if introduced with care and accuracy.
Takashi’s restaurant offers an uncommon dining experience in Japan, built on first-hand training, direct cultural exchange, and a decision to keep a regional Indian cuisine intact in both flavour and form. Both his food and his practice carries not just spice and heat, but the accumulated work of learning from the people who cook it every day in its home city.
Follow Takashi here.
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