CHIZU, Tottori Prefecture--Drawn by scenery reminiscent of Studio Ghibli films, a remote valley in this western town is attracting an audience of overseas visitors despite few Japanese knowing about the place.

With the novel coronavirus pandemic past its most acute stage, inbound tourists are returning to the ravine lying deep in the mountains to experience nation's offering.

TASTE OF A MOUNTAIN VILLAGE

A typical starting point for traveling to the Ashizu valley, as the valley is called, is Chizu Station in Chizu, Tottori Prefecture.

An approximately 20-minute car ride along a river, which supplies sand to the Tottori Sand Dunes some 30 kilometers to the north, takes the traveler to the valley, also in the town of Chizu, close to the border with Okayama Prefecture.

People visit this valley from abroad to eat lunch at Mitaki-en, which bills itself as a restaurant offering “mountain village” cuisine.

Old thatched-roof private houses dot the premises of the restaurant under a thick foliage of trees.

A brook that runs between the houses drives a water mill while also chilling beers and soft drinks that have been placed into the cold waters. More than 10 Japanese bantam chickens were seen crowing and cackling loudly as they ran about in a moss-covered yard.

Restaurant workers in cooking aprons carried cherry salmon, hot from the oven, and other dishes to the tables.

The view of the complex in the heart of nature has led many visitors from abroad to recall scenes from Studio Ghibli’s animated films.

One person from abroad visiting the area declared it was Hayao Miyazaki's world, in reference to the anime maestro who co-founded the famed anime studio.

RECOVERING FROM PANDEMIC

On a recent day, a group of four people from Hong Kong were eating lunch at Mitaki-en.

Hamish Lam, a member of the group, appeared excited. He said he had long wanted to come here after he learned online about the restaurant, with its unique concept of being in a forest and using ingredients grown or caught locally.

Shum Kit Ying, another member of the group, also appeared content. She said the restaurant’s tempura of edible wild plants tasted fantastic.

Mitaki-en opened 52 years ago.

Its operators relocated abandoned farmhouses from elsewhere in Chizu onto the plot of land in an untouched forest to prepare the restaurant complex.

Word of the eating establishment that is “one with nature” spread among audiences both at home and abroad, though its operators did not indulge in flashy advertisements.

Mitaki-en was listed in the Michelin Guide edition published in 2018 as a “Bib Gourmand” restaurant, which it says offers good value for the money.

Around the same time, a growing number of visitors from abroad visited the restaurant. Hardly a day passed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic without overseas customers visiting. They accounted for about 20 percent of all its guests.

“One party even took a taxi all the way from Kansai Airport (outside Osaka) to come here,” said Akiko Teratani, 41, who is set to be the next proprietress of the eatery. “Perhaps many of our guests are looking for an archetypal Japanese landscape here.”

The restaurant had no visitors from abroad for some time during the pandemic, but it began receiving inquiries from overseas via email while it was still closed for winter holidays earlier this year.

People have been visiting the place from abroad at a rate of approximately one group every several days since it reopened for business in April, officials said.

One selling point of the restaurant is the respect it pays to the area’s traditional culinary culture, including by making tofu and konjac in-house for use in the dishes on the menu.

“We have been steadily working since the time when nobody ever imagined that people would come this deep in the mountains to eat edible wild plants,” said Setsuko Teratani, 76, the proprietress. “I hope the power of nature, which is a gift of God, will help restore people.”

SWEETS MADE WITH FRESH SOYMILK

Ashizu’s water is another pride and joy of the locality. It has inspired the birth of a new sightseeing spot for attracting visitors from abroad.

“Tsubu to Shizuku” (Grains and drops), a shop dedicated to sweets, opened diagonally across from Mitaki-en on June 17. It is operated by Rakusui, a wholesale tofu manufacturer whose customers include a high-end supermarket chain based in the Kansai region.

The store was completed ahead of the sightseeing season of summer, when many tourists visit Japan.

The outlet sells about 30 types of additive-free sweets made with soymilk freshly ground from soybeans grown in Tottori Prefecture.

Rakusui Co. relocated its tofu plant from Kobe, the capital of Hyogo Prefecture, to Ashizu in 1988. The decisive factor for the move was the availability of soft water that flows out of the mountains where woods of the Chizu cedar, known for being good timber, grow.

Water makes up more than 70 percent of tofu. The manufacturer spent 30 million yen ($208,000) to install a 1.2-km-long pipe from a fountainhead to build the plant, well aware that the location is logistically unsuitable.

The best-before date for the soymilk donuts, the centerpiece of the new shop, is the day after they are made. That could appear too daunting, considering the remote location.

Rakusui still proceeded in developing the product in the belief that a growing number of visitors from abroad would create demand for on-site consumption of the blessings of Ashizu’s nature, company officials said.

Rakusui President Hideo Yukimitsu said he believes in Ashizu’s potential.

“The area, deep in the mountains, is certainly inconveniently located, but I believe you will feel the sweetness of its air and water if you spend some leisurely time there,” the president said.