Born in 1977, deep in the hills of Hiroshima, Saburo, or Sabu, as his friends call him, lived in the same rural community until he graduated from high school. By then, he had found his way into people’s hearts (and stomachs), to the point that cheering friends and classmates filled his high school yearbook, urging him to make his culinary mark in the world.
For ground training, Sabu entered the famous Tsuji Culinary Institute in Osaka. His next step was an apprenticeship at a Chinese restaurant in the Hotel Okura Kobe. Intent on expanding his skills, he subsequently worked at a Japanese seafood restaurant and a Teppanyaki house.
In the meantime, he developed a fascination with brick oven cooking. He even built a brick oven in his back yard to explore its capabilities. Sabu decided, however, he would not do pizza. He would instead express his culinary self by means of a wood-burning oven.
When nine out of ten people hear the word “stone oven,” they invariably ask, “You mean pizza?” Sabu decided to break that stereotype with his own restaurant. His search in Suo-Oshima, his wife’s hometown, brought him to “Adagio,” a restaurant whose retiring owners were looking to sell. Sabu acquired it, named it distinctively, “Saburo-tei, Stone Oven Restaurant and Café” and promptly installed—a stone oven.
True to focus, Saburo-tei is pleased to offer you from main dish to coffee, and even rice, prepared in a stone oven. But more than to simply showcase his skills, Sabu works to highlight quality produce and products from valued local sources. And now, against a backdrop similar to the mountains of his youth, Sabu delights in offering you the added ambience of a magnificent ocean view.