Tucked into the quiet neighbourhood of Ohashi, Japan, Midori Store doesn’t look like a typical Indian restaurant. Its old-school interiors and steaming bowls of curry brought straight to the table recall the feel of a Nagpur “bhojnalaya” rather than the curry houses Japanese diners usually encounter, and that interpretation is deliberate.
Midori Store: The Maharashtrian Treasure In Japan
The man behind this Maharashtrian-core restaurant called Midori Store is Takashi-san. He is a Japanese chef who fell in love with Maharashtra’s food during travels to India. He went beyond tourist kitchens, learning directly from Nagpur cooks, eating at Saoji joints known for their unapologetic spice, and even studying Marathi so he could speak the language of the cuisine he wanted to honour.
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The Maharashtra-Core Menu & Feels
What he brought back is Saoji cuisine: a style born in the Halba-Koshti community of central India and famed for curries that are red, oily, and fiery. Dishes like Shahi Murgi and mutton curries thick with roasted masala powders form the backbone of the menu. There are also dals, pao, and desserts such as rabri faluda, offering Fukuoka diners a meal that is unfamiliar but completely faithful to Nagpur’s streetside tables.
Choosing the word “bhojnalaya” for the restaurant matters. It signals humility and intent. Saoji food was never meant to be fine dining; it thrives in modest eateries where the spice and warmth dominate the experience. By recreating that context in his Midori Store in Japan, Takashi-san has made a statement: this isn’t “Indian food” in the generic sense; it’s “Vidarbha” on a plate.
The response has been swift. Videos of the restaurant have been shared widely among Maharashtrians online, many calling it a moment of pride. Diners in Fukuoka, meanwhile, seem intrigued by the heat and intensity of the dishes.
Where: 2-11-12 Oohashi, Minami Ward, Fukuoka City
When: 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM
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Every choice at this restaurant, from the recipes to the Marathi on the menus and the stripped-down setting, is an attempt to preserve the spirit of what he learnt in Nagpur. “I became Japan’s first locally authorised Saoji ambassador after training at a popular Saoji restaurant in Nagpur in the middle of India,” he writes proudly.
Cover Image Courtesy: midoristore_fuk/Instagram