Book Review – The Restaurant of Love Regained by Ito Ogawa

Rinko works in a restaurant in a big city. One day she comes home to find that her apartment has been cleaned out by her boyfriend and he has left. She doesn’t have any option other than moving in with her mom, who lives in a village. All this makes Rinko temporarily lose her voice. Even though her relationship with her mother has always been difficult, Rinko’s mother lets her stay there. After a few days, Rinko decides to start her own restaurant in the village. This would be a special kind of restaurant in which she will serve only one table – either one person or a couple or a family. Rinko plans to talk to this person or family in advance and prepare and serve exquisite dishes which will give them pleasure and make them happy. Her friend Kuma helps her to setup the restaurant.

What happens after that? Is Rinko’s restaurant successful? Do the customers like her food? Does her relationship with her mother become better? Does she find love again? Does she find her voice again? The answer to these questions form the rest of the story.

I loved ‘The Restaurant of Love Regained‘. It is a glorious celebration of food, a beautiful love letter to food. There are pages and pages of descriptions of how Rinko cooks a particular dish, in Ito Ogawa’s spare, elegant prose, and they are beautiful to read – we can almost smell the aroma of the wonderful food wafting from the kitchen. The story is nice too – it is about how a person who loses everything, tries to climb back from the depths and the surprises she encounters in the way. There is Kuma, her friend, who is very likeable, and there is Rinko’s mother Ruriko, who is a complex character and there is more to her than meets the eye. Then there is Hermes, Ruriko’s pet pig, who is very protective of her, and very adorable. I loved all these characters. The main character is, of course, Rinko, who narrates the story. Towards the end of the story something happens – it is a very Japanese, Chinese, East Asian thing. I won’t tell you what it is, because I don’t want to reveal spoilers. But I will say this – I didn’t see that coming and it was heartbreaking.

I saw a film years back called ‘Babette’s Feast‘. (In case you are interested my review is here.)  It is an incredibly beautiful celebration of food. ‘The Restaurant of Love Regained’ is its literary sister. If you like reading novels about food, you will like this. I read that this book has been made into a film too. I can’t wait to watch that.

Have you read Ito Ogawa’s book? What do you think about it?