EAT > Fujimaru, Osaka

Osaka is well known for its street food, with 222 listings in the Michelin Guide (3 for 3 star, 9 for 2 star and 80 for 1 star) you know that they are serious about food. But what about wine, well that is a little harder to find, especially if like us on this occasion you happen to be travelling with young people so eating simpler foods.

The Star Wine List is a wonderful resource when you are looking for restaurants and wine bars with a reasonable selection and that is exactly how we came across Fujimaru.

On the ground floor they have a wine shop with excellent walk in cellar and above there is an Italian restaurant with some really interesting and original dishes.

The menu is only in Japanese so unless you are fluent you might want to ensure you have Google Translate ready to go, we really enjoyed an (original) entree of kiwi fruit, fig and mascarpone – tasted amazing. Pasta dishes were fairly standard a bolognese made with wagyu beef also had sweet potato and the amatriciana was served with bucatini pasta. Roast chicken was the dish of the night, sweet and moist, perfect.

The wine was a beautiful Burgundy from Beaune, it was ¥7,500 (about $80 AUD to drink in the restaurant) I was looking for a list price and retail in Australia was ~$100, so very good value. If you are craving a nice glass of wine with some tasty pasta then this place is ideal, the staff are wonderful too.

image credit | Crispy ALMANAK Magazine (click images to expand to lightbox)