Address - Kanagawa-ken, Zushi-shi, Zushi 6-5-9 Opening hours - Open from 12:00 to 15:00 and from 18:00 to 24:00 (Monday to Friday), or from from 12:00 to 15:00 and from 18:00 to 22:00 (Holidays) Map - Yes Telephone - 0468 72-2045 Menu - In Italian and Japanese CC - No Site - Yes (in Japanese)

Through the years, living with me my girlfriend has become quite a bit Italian when it comes to food (I do all the cooking), so she often searches the Net for good and unusual restaurants. To her I owe many remarkable discoveries you too are benefiting from. Some time ago she found the site of a Italian wine bar in Zushi called Lanterna Rossa. Lanterna Rossa means Red Lantern, which in turn means Akachochin in Japanese.

The place is tiny and at first sight unremarkable, but a look at the menu makes you immediately realize it's a labor of love. Since this a wine bar and not a restaurant, it serves mere snacks, but what snacks! Ultrarare cured meats of many kinds, among them the two kings of raw ham, Parma and S. Daniele, sophisticated cheeses served with honey, not to mention rarities like Ching Tao Dark Beer ... Who knows where he finds the stuff, but the result is remarkable. I never thought one day I would eat Cinta di Siena (fantastic cured bacon from Tuscany) in Zushi.

There's also a long wine list, like the food mostly Tuscan, many of them rare and very expensive.
Expensive not because the man is a highway robber, but because they are very special stuff. In a word, Lanterna Rossa is a friendly, cozy, unpretentious, yet sophisticated place run by people who know what they are doing.
Just remember not to go on an empty stomach. This is NOT a restaurant.

October 2004