the garden
THE ROJI NIWA (Dewy Ground Garden)
The Guesthouse and Restaurant have broad views of the inner traditional Japanese tea house garden, with some of the trees dating back 150 years. Take your time to enjoy the sounds of the trickling stream, mossy green stone pathways, chozubachi water bowls and tori stone statues. If you feel inclined, you can even make an offering to the Kami Dana, a Shinto god who is enshrined in the garden.
It is very rare to find a Kami Dana in a private garden, and we have had the local Shinto priest bless the small house. The Kami who resides here is a water god and, in particular, a god of agricultural water. She blesses the water for an abundant and nutritional crop, and in return, we provide fresh produce and flowers from the garden, sake and rice and salt for her comfort. We feel incredibly fortunate to have this blessing watching over all the ingredients we grow and serve to our guests.
THE SOTO ROJI - (Outer garden)
Our outer garden has been transformed into a kitchen garden where herbs, fruits and vegetables are grown for use in the restaurant and special events. The two are linked by a stepstone path and narrow garden fashioned to emulate a Nijiriguchi (small teahouse entrance) where the guest is required, by nature, to bow their head to enter, symbolising humility and equality. A gentle reminder that social status is to be left outside.
Our kitchen garden is supported by nuka activated rice bran (a byproduct of the rice farming industry) compost, which is fed using the restaurant's food scraps, closing a loop in some of our waste production.
The various ingredients we grow throughout the seasons can be found here.
The garden can be visited through the experiences we hold at Modern Minka or if you reserve a weekend retreat.
GARDEN EXPERIENCES
(LUNCH INCLUDED)
Spend a morning in the garden at Modern Minka, creating a tea blend that reflects the season, the landscape, and your own sense of taste.
This small-group experience introduces a wider view of tea in Japan, where leaves, herbs, blossoms, fruit, roots, bark, and preserved seasonal ingredients are often used to make comforting daily infusions. Guided by the ingredients growing and stored at Modern Minka, you will learn how different plants contribute aroma, colour, flavour, and feeling, then build a blend to enjoy over lunch.
We begin in the outer kitchen garden with a welcome tea and a gentle walk through the plants in season, where we will harvest a small selection of herbs together for the blends of the day. Along the way, we will look at how fresh herbs, dried botanicals, citrus peel, flowers, roasted grains, and house-made syrups can be layered into a balanced cup.
After gathering from the garden, we move to the kitchen atelier to mix, taste, and adjust. Each guest will create a personal blend using fresh and preserved ingredients from Modern Minka, including seasonal botanicals and koso, a Japanese enzyme syrup made through fermentation and preservation. You will draw water from the chagama, brew your tea, and taste the finished blend before sitting down to a seasonal garden lunch, finishing with wagashi sweets.
If there is tea left from your blend, we will package it for you to take home, so you can return to the flavour of the garden after your visit.
Group size: up to 6 guests per session. Please choose an available date from the booking calendar.
Time: 10:00am–12:30pm, approximately 2.5 hours.
If the weather makes the garden unsuitable, the workshop will be adapted for the tea house and kitchen atelier indoors.
(LUNCH INCLUDED)
Step into a Japanese cooking experience shaped by place, season and hospitality. At Modern Minka, our culinary programs celebrate the seasonal abundance of Kanazawa and its surrounds, set within a traditional Japanese Rojiniwa garden and our teahouse architecture-inspired home. Menus and recipes change throughout the year, offering a deeper and more personal introduction to Japanese cuisine. You’ll leave with practical techniques, adaptable recipes and a stronger understanding of the foundations that make Japanese cooking both refined and achievable in your own kitchen.
Your day begins in the garden with a welcome tea and a short tour, gathering a few seasonal ingredients along the way. From there, we’ll move into the kitchen atelier for a relaxed, hands-on class where you’ll cook, taste and learn together around the workbench.
Throughout the class, we’ll work with local produce, ingredients gathered from the kitchen garden and house-made preserves and ferments prepared across the seasons, adding depth, character and a distinctly Modern Minka touch to the meal.
By the end of the day together we will have explored foundational Japanese cooking techniques and everyday kitchen practices, from careful knife work and ingredient preparation to building balance through seasonality, texture and umami. The class will cover essentials such as washing and cooking rice, preparing dashi, simmering, steaming, grilling over charcoal using our kitchen's irori hearth, frying, pickling, fermenting and making simple stocks, broths and sauces. We’ll also discuss how to create a practical Japanese pantry with ingredients such as miso, soy sauce, mirin, sake, rice vinegar, kombu, bonito, sesame and seasonal preserves, along with the tools and habits that make Japanese cooking approachable in your own kitchen.
After the class, you’ll sit down beneath the weeping cherry tree to enjoy the meal you’ve helped prepare. With the table set in the garden using local ceramics, beautiful linen and fresh flowers, each course will be carefully plated so you can relax into a seasonal dining experience that feels both thoughtful and unhurried, paired with local wines and sake. Non-alcoholic drinks can be made available on request. The experience runs from 10am to 3pm and includes a 2.5-hour hands-on cooking class in the kitchen atelier, followed by a leisurely five-course lunch and a selection of locally made wagashi sweets to finish.
If the weather makes the garden unsuitable, the workshop will be adapted for the tea house and kitchen atelier indoors.
All instruction is in English
As much as we love to see little ones getting involved in the kitchen, we are not able to accommodate children during our cooking classes and seasonal workshops in consideration of the other guests participating. If you would like to inquire about an exclusive use class to accommodate children, please use the ‘contact us’ form.
Please note our classes are not suitable for vegans, strict vegetarians, those allergic to seafood or those who are gluten intolerant.
Each weekend, Modern Minka opens up for the exclusive use of two guests, offering time to settle into the quiet rhythm of the property and experience all it has to offer. The retreat includes two days and one night’s accommodation, a long lunch, seasonal breakfast, and your choice of workshop from our curated selection.
Located near the Asano River, Modern Minka is a quiet guesthouse reborn from an old Japanese house, teahouse and traditional garden, shaped by stillness, craft, and understated luxury.
The Weekend Retreat offers a gentle pause from the pace of everyday life. Designed as a moment of calm in the heart of Kanazawa, it invites you to slow down, reconnect, and return to yourself through thoughtful experiences, restorative spaces, and time simply to be.
The package includes one night’s accommodation for two guests in our converted teahouse, a long lunch in the garden, seasonal breakfast, and your choice of workshop from our curated selection. Each stay can also be tailored with care to suit your needs.
SEE BELOW FOR FURTHER DETAILS
ROJINIWA (the inner dewy ground garden)
a tale of two gardens
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Roji niwa
A contemplative space tucked between the Guesthouse and the Main House, Modern Minka’s traditional inner garden evokes the quiet elegance of a classic teahouse setting. Carefully layered velvet green mosses carpet the ground, creating soft, living paths that lead past stone lanterns and a hand-carved water basin. Seasonal plantings of azalea, camellia, and Japanese maple offer refined colour and texture from spring blooms to autumn foliage, while pines and bamboo fence work provide year-round structure and subtly frame views. Every element is placed to invite pause: the whisper of water, the dappled light through lantern-lit branches, and the measured contrast of stone, plant, and wood, the garden complements Modern Minka’s hospitality—where traditional aesthetics meet thoughtful, contemporary comfort.
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Soto roji
Modern Minka’s outer garden mirrors the seasonal shifts unfolding in our kitchen atelier. Each planting, pathway, and stone is composed to echo the flavours and textures our team brings inside: tender shoots of spring herbs; summer’s vivid greens and fragrant shiso shaded by maples; autumn’s root vegetables and log-grown mushrooms framed by amber foliage; and the quiet architecture of winter, where preserved citrus and hardy greens stand against clean, white snow. Guests move through a landscape that prepares the senses for the experience to come, where garden moments are translated into experiences that honour time, place, and the careful rhythm of seasonal change. The result is a seamless dialogue between garden and plate, where every view outside sets the tone for the event within.
