Freshly cooked steam, glossy grains, and a gentle sweetness that deepens with every bite.
Opening in Akasaka, Fukuoka, on August 8, 2026, Akasaka Myotoku is a restaurant where rice takes center stage. Counter seats surround the kitchen at the heart of the restaurant, forming Kome Lab, where freshly cooked rice is the focus. Alongside it is Niku Lab, a fully reservation-only counter serving course meals that explore the many possibilities of wagyu.
The rice is Myotoku Rice from Myotoku Farm, grown with spring water from Mount Aso in Kumamoto. The variety is Milky Queen, carefully cooked to order in individual clay pots. When the lid is lifted, a sweet aroma rises with the steam. In the mouth, the rice has a satisfyingly chewy texture. It is a bowl best tasted first on its own, without adding anything.
Chikanori Myotoku, President and Representative Director of Myotoku Co., Ltd., which operates the Japanese restaurant Myotoku in Ube City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, spoke about the company’s first opening in Fukuoka.
“Fukuoka is a city of food, and a city where many visitors from overseas gather,” he said. “I wanted to see what kind of response we could receive by presenting rice and beef simply here, and sending that message out to the world from Fukuoka, from Ube in Yamaguchi.”
Myotoku, who has worked as a chef in Yamaguchi and at a Kyoto ryotei, places importance on expressing the natural quality of the ingredients as directly as possible.
“There are many cooking methods,” he said, “but my real wish is for things to be simple, delicious, pleasing, and easy to understand.”
At Kome Lab, diners first taste the freshly cooked white rice on its own, then wrap it in first-harvest nori from the Ariake Sea. From there, the meal becomes more personal. Based around house-made mentaiko, bottarga with grated yam, freshly shaved Makurazaki bonito flakes that have been named Japan’s best, and egg yolk, diners can add accompaniments such as marinated bluefin tuna, whitebait with grated daikon, and Myotoku Beef to create their own ideal bowl of rice.
The basic set is beautifully arranged around a clay pot of rice, with miso soup, salad that can also be enjoyed like pickles, nori, and other small dishes. It feels like a small course designed for appreciating white rice, moving from the natural sweetness of the rice itself to combinations with nori, egg, mentaiko, and more.
Diners can also add dishes such as a 100% Myotoku Beef hamburg steak finished at the table, sukiyaki, or beef cutlet to make a fuller set meal.
Speaking as a chef, Myotoku says that for enjoying freshly cooked white rice, “When you fill your mouth with rice and make rice the main character, I think the highly distinctive Milky Queen is the most suitable.” While sushi rice is often made with older rice or very old rice so that the outline of each grain stands out, freshly cooked white rice calls for the aroma and chewy texture of Milky Queen. That chef’s perspective forms the foundation of Kome Lab.
Niku Lab, meanwhile, is limited to eight counter seats. It uses Myotoku Beef, specially raised by Ushi no Nakayama, a producer in Kanoya City, Kagoshima Prefecture. Ushi no Nakayama has won a Gold Prize at the National Wagyu Ability Expo, often called the Wagyu Olympics. Myotoku Beef is an original wagyu brand selected from that producer’s cattle especially for Myotoku.
At Kome Lab, Myotoku Beef can be enjoyed casually in rice-friendly forms such as hamburg steak, sukiyaki, and beef cutlet.
At Niku Lab, the beef appears in a 13 to 14-dish kappo course that begins with dashi and ends with sweets. Through preparations such as raw, lightly blanched, low-temperature cooked, and grilled dishes, the course expresses wagyu in varied ways. Dishes include wagyu ohagi-style with caviar, a tasting of three wagyu cuts, truffle-scented chawanmushi, wagyu steak, uni menchi-katsu, sukiyaki, and freshly cooked rice.
At the pre-opening preview, clay pots rattled softly as steam rose from the counter, while beautiful ingredients were presented, including blocks of finely marbled wagyu and an impressive cut of bluefin tuna. The live feeling of watching the cooking unfold close at hand is part of what makes Akasaka Myotoku appealing.
Akasaka Myotoku
- 1F Akasaka Wing, 1-13-8 Akasaka, Chuo-ku, Fukuoka
- Open:10:00 to 22:00
- Last order: 21:30
- Tel: 092-401-6688
- Closed irregularly
- Website: https://akasaka.myotoku.jp/
- Instagram: @akasaka_myotoku
- Menu: Hakushari Zen ¥1,560, Hakushari and Hamburg Steak Set ¥2,730, Hakushari and Sukiyaki Set ¥2,730, Hakushari and Beef Cutlet Set ¥2,730, extra clay pot rice ¥300, wagyu yukhoe ¥980
Akasaka Myotoku Niku Lab
- Fully reservation-only, simultaneous course start
- Lunch: 11:00 to 13:00
- Dinner: 17:00 to 19:30
- 8 counter seats only, wagyu kappo course ¥12,800