Dining at Cantina, you might feel you are having a nice meal in Napoli, Italy. This restaurant is located along the Zushi beach. We have a great view of the beach and colorful wind surfing sails like butterflies floating on the waves from the tables at the very front of the window side.
The building is in the South-European style and a wedding church is attached. The interior has the atmosphere of a wine cellar in the Toscana district. The big stone pizza oven is very imposing and it’s fun to see the cooks taking pizzas in and out of the oven through the big glass window. The terra cotta–themed interior gives a cozy and relaxing feeling. On the 2nd floor, which also has a wonderful beach view, there are some open spaces for big groups (a reservation is needed).
Cantina serves very tasty and reasonably priced Italian dishes. They say they are a Napolitan restaurant, but they make an effort to use local food like fresh vegetables from the Hayama area or Kamakura and seafood like shirasu (whitebait) landed at various Zushi ports. So that I think the dishes they serve are a bit Japanese-Italian style and very interesting.
I recommend that you go to Cantina during the daytime: It’s really fun to walk along the street on the shore side under the sunshine and to enjoy the sea view from the windows of the restaurant. In addition to enjoying the beach, the lunch menu is highly recommended. The main dish is pasta or pizza (I recommend hot pizza just taken out of the stone oven), and when you order a lunch set with antipasto and dessert that includes several choices of cakes and ice creams, I bet you’ll become so stuffed!
Also, you can find some good fresh chocolate (we call it ‘nama choco’) as a souvenir. A chocolate shop called ‘Silsmaria’ is at the side of the restaurant. The fresh chocolate is made with Belgian chocolate and fresh cream and soft enough to melt on your tongue. Since the fresh chocolate of Silsmaria was first made and sold in Japan over 20 years ago, it must be worth a shot!
There are a lot of good tastes in this restaurant and I am sure you will be satisfied with all of them!
