Hakkaisan Izumi Village, Muikamachi

Hakkaisan Izumi Village is a bit hard to classify as it contains a shop, restaurant, gardens, event space and bakery. I suppose it’s main purpose is as a wedding venue but it gets more traffic for its other attractions. We dropped in out of interest and spent a few enjoyable hours there.

It’s a beautiful building with plenty of wood and glass surrounding a central pond, and gardens around the outside. The first thing you come across is the little shop, Portico. It sells lots of different local specialties including the famous Hakkaisan sake, and its lesser known cousin, the house Izumi Beer. There are lots of samples around so you can get a good idea of what suits your palate.

Tucked away in one corner of the shop is a craft bakery, Conerette, with lots of enticing varieties on display. For a bread lover unfulfilled by the usual white sliced variety this was a little goldmine and we came away with a delicious selection of crusty, interesting creations.

Upstairs is the Italian Restaurant Taverna Gozzo. It seems to be one of the main draws for Izumi Village and was full when we arrived, with a constant stream of people joining the queue - always a good sign. They have a wide range of pizzas, salads and pastas. The pizzas are freshly baked in a wood-fired oven right in the main restaurant. We also had a thin cheese and basil flat bread with dipping oil that was amazing. I could have eaten several more of these alone. The pastas were good and can be upgraded to sharing sized portions if you want to get one for the whole table. We opted for the garlic and chili spaghetti, and a seafood tomato concoction. Both were quickly devoured with nothing but a bit of sauce left on the plate.

The local Izumi beer is a good accompaniment to the the meal. They serve a tasting selection where you get a flute of each of the three varieties to compare them side by side. With a pizza fresh out of the oven, three tall glasses of beer in front of you and the sun shining down through the high windows in the restaurant it is easy to image Taverna Gozzo becoming a regular hangout.