TRATTORIA PIZZERIA 207Hayama (flagship)

That day, our founder, Takeuchi, happened to pass along the coastal road in Hayama.

Beside the road stood a white house. It had once been a restaurant. Still new, it had lost its master and stood quietly facing the sea.

The moment he stopped, a vision rose in his heart: southern Italy, Amalfi. A sea overflowing with light, and white houses. Before his eyes stretched Hayama's Isshiki Beach.

And inside the building, a large pizza oven had been left behind.

What if wonderful pizza could be baked here? What if you could bite into it while gazing out at the sea? Surely, he thought, it would make anyone happy.

What we wanted to make was an unpretentious place. Casual, yet genuinely delicious, and somehow always calling you back. To build a place like that, what mattered most to us was the energy of the spot itself.

So we named the restaurant after the road that runs past its door: Prefectural Route 207. This road winds along the coast, and we wanted it, along with the air this sea has nurtured, always at the heart of the place.

A pure white house overlooking Isshiki Beach and Sagami Bay. From the oven in the open kitchen come Neapolitan pizzas, their dough made from a blend of several flours. On the second and third floors, terrace seats. By day you gaze at the blue sea; at dusk, at a sky slowly changing color. The meal itself becomes part of the scenery.

To be honest, as a business, the conditions are hardly ideal.

It is not a large restaurant. When it rains, the customers simply stop coming. Even with every seat full, the profits are modest.

And yet, little by little, this place has become loved. Some people drop in on a walk; others come to spend a seaside holiday. Some bring their pets along.

The restaurant will keep changing, always for the better.

But some things must never change. The simply lovely time we first felt in this place. The feeling of savoring good food and good drink while gazing out at the sea. Holding that precious thing close, 207 keeps changing, little by little, today as ever.