Meals to Remember at the Chibineko Kitchen  
 by Yuta Takahashi

The first book in a successful 7-title series in Japan.

19-year-old Kotoko Niki has come to a seaside town in Chiba Prefecture hoping for a miracle. Reeling from the death of her beloved brother, she has heard rumours of a certain eating establishment with a resident cat called Chibi where one can be reunited with the deceased. A fool’s hope she thinks – at least until she begins eating. The clock stops, the sea and the gulls fall silent, the air grows hazy…

​

In Meals to Remember at the Chibineko Kitchen, we follow Kotoko as she crosses paths with a handful of other protagonists (and the cats in their lives), all seeking to come to terms with the passing of a loved one: a primary school child and his first love, an old farmer and his wife, a young man and his mother. Reminiscent of Before the Coffee Gets Cold, author Yuta Takahashi’s elegant sentences explore the power of love and memory, while also featuring mouthwatering descriptions of Japanese dishes, to produce a novel both about coming to terms with death, and discovering what is important in life.

​