Masato Nishihara is intrigued by the beauty of the incomplete; art that stops just short of perfection. Subtracting one line from a hundred makes the character for ‘tsukumo’ an old-timey word for ‘ninety-nine’, but it also denotes ‘white’, the starting-point akin to a ‘tabula rasa’, as it is one short of one hundred, or completion. Nishihara unravels the culture of Nara, where Japan’s history began. Seeking a deeper understanding of Japanese cuisine, he weaves his menu from local ingredients and his innate ingenuity. Originality flows like tales from the old capital.