This time we will introduce "KURKKU FIELDS," which has 30 hectares of land in Kisarazu City, Chiba Prefecture, and where you can enjoy freshly picked vegetables, freshly made cheese, and charcuterie in a space dotted with art. Enjoy a stay report by Yuka Yamaguchi, a cook who likes to stay in accommodations with kitchens and has done what she calls "self-cooking trips" many times.
This time's traveller: Yuka Yamaguchi
Home cooking chef. Born in Tokyo in 1992. Became familiar with cooking from the age of 7, and to spread the joy of cooking, she is involved in a wide range of activities, including cooking classes for beginners called "Home Cooking Lessons" and "Online Home Cooking Lessons for Elementary School Students," recipe creation, book writing, and broadcasting "Yamaguchi Yuka's Travel, Life and Food" on the audio media Voicy. Her books include "Cooking for Yourself: A Story of 'Care' That Begins with Home Cooking."
When traveling, you can stay at a place with a kitchen and cook shiny vegetables and sparkling fish picked that morning.
I think there are a lot of people who love to visit roadside stations and local supermarkets when they travel. For foodies, shiny fresh vegetables and sparkling fish get our hearts racing. However, I often stay in hotels when I travel, and I've often felt frustrated, thinking, "I want to take these vegetables home and cook them right away, but I don't have a kitchen..." It would be fine if I could take them home, but there were many things that I wanted to eat right away because they were so fresh! So I gave up the option of bar-hopping, which is the best part of traveling, and started to like staying in accommodations with kitchens and cooking for myself when I travel.
He named this style of travel "home-cooking trips" and has continued doing so all over the country.
Map of Crook Fields (Source: Crook Fields official website)
The next place I definitely wanted to go to was KURKKU FIELDS in Kisarazu, Chiba Prefecture. KURKKU FIELDS is a complex that is like a foodie's dream, with land for primary industries such as organic vegetable cultivation, poultry farming, and dairy farming, and restaurants, bakeries, and charcuterie shops that use the ingredients from those industries.
Music producer Kobayashi Takeshi, who has been working in agriculture for many years for a sustainable future, opened the venue in 2019 on his Kisarazu farm, incorporating elements of art and culture.
The accommodation we stayed at, "cocoon," is a new facility built in 2022, with seven guest rooms, a kitchen lounge, a restaurant, and a sauna hut. The overall direction of cocoon is handled by Akira Minagawa of minä perhonen, and expectations are building for what kind of beautiful space it will be.
Arrived at "KURKKU FIELDS". The guest rooms are decorated with art by Yayoi Kusama and other artists, and designed by Akira Minagawa of Mina Perhonen.
Entrance to "KURKKU FIELDS"
We arrived at Crook Fields, about an hour's drive from downtown Tokyo, around noon and headed straight to the restaurant.
The chewy hamburger steak, made from a parent chicken, is filled with finely chopped carrots, giving it a natural sweetness and making it very delicious. After filling our stomachs, we took a walk around the market.
The bowl-shaped space is filled with joy that anyone can enjoy, such as fields, art including Yayoi Kusama, play equipment made from natural materials, and a biotope, and it is truly a generous space.
The entrance to the underground library
The new underground library has a fantastic selection of books and you could spend forever there.
We checked into the inn at 3pm. The room was designed to resemble a cocoon, and was just the right size, neither too big nor too small.
The simple interior is accented with the distinctive Mina Perhonen style, making it a lovely space.
The windows are large and the room feels more open than its size would suggest. I would be enchanted if I could live in a room like this.
You can eat freshly made buffalo mozzarella. Take a farm tour around the fields and cowsheds.
What I was looking forward to this time was the Crook Fields Farm Tour, which is free for all guests staying at the hotel.
Farm tour
Our guide was Tsuyoshi Sato from Crook Fields. He was very friendly and made us feel at ease.
First, we went to the vegetable field. Summer vegetables such as morning glory and mulukhiyah were growing freely. After harvesting what we wanted to use today, we moved on to the next field. Apparently, the tomatoes were almost completely destroyed by this year's extreme heat, and Tsuyoshi said, "This is the natural state of the field, so I want people to see it." It's true that this summer was so hot that it was hard to just survive. Even in such conditions, some plants were growing well, and I think their vitality is admirable.
Next we visited a buffalo barn, which is very rare in Japan. The milk of the buffaloes with their magnificent horns is milked every morning and processed into mozzarella by craftsmen who have trained in Italy. It is very rare to find a place in Japan where you can eat freshly made buffalo mozzarella. This will be a great night out!
A 5-day-old baby buffalo sucks on your hand with great vigor.
By the time we finished the farm tour, our baskets were packed with so many vegetables that they could not all fit inside - mulukhiyah, eggplant, bell peppers, okra, and more. Just thinking about these becoming tonight's ingredients made my heart flutter.
The brand of tools you've always wanted to try, and spices that you can tell were carefully selected. The luxury of being able to cook your own meals in this space.
Kitchen Lounge
The kitchen lounge is equipped with three system kitchens, so you can cook to your heart's content. If you take a closer look at the kitchen utensils and dishes, you'll see that they are all first-class products that any cooking enthusiast has heard of, such as Kiya pots, hammered woks, Cutipol cutlery, Noda enamelware trays and bowls, and Tadafusa knives. It's hard to collect all of these tools at home, so this is also attractive as a place where you can actually try out the tools you've always wanted to use.
It is clear that everything from the utensils, spices, seasonings, tea and coffee have been carefully selected, and being able to cook in this space is a luxurious experience in itself.
Now, let's cook. I coat potatoes, carrots, radishes, and peppers in olive oil, wrap them in aluminum foil, and roast them over a wood fire.
Tsuyoshi was in charge of cooking over the wood fire. I made a salad of carrots, zucchini, and ham, boiled morning glory, marinated grilled eggplant, and molokheiya soup.
For the salad, simply shred the carrots and zucchini, rub them with salt, drain them, and toss them with olive oil, white balsamic vinegar, and shredded delicious ham from Crookfields. For the boiled morning glory, lightly boil them, then serve them in a bowl, topped with soy sauce and dried bonito flakes.
The marinated grilled eggplant is deep-fried in plenty of olive oil, then mixed with white wine vinegar and salt and topped with chopped basil. The molokheiya soup is a summery soup with a spice accent. All that's left is to put mozzarella on the plate.
Complete!
We arranged the vegetables and sausages that Tsuyoshi had grilled and today's meal was complete! "Why don't we eat it together?" we asked Tsuyoshi and another staff member, and we toasted.
Although he likes traveling alone, when he cooks for himself, he often can't finish all the food by himself. It's fun when the staff also eat together because they can make a lot (Tsuyoshi says that he responds flexibly to the mood of the guests and decides whether to eat together or not).
By the way, vegetables, seasonings, and rice are included in the price of the accommodation, and you can buy your own charcuterie, bread, alcohol, etc. on the premises. Pasta, cheese, and additional wine needed for cooking can be purchased at the mini shop in the kitchen lounge.
I like the experience of being treated well at an inn, but enriching your stay on your own is also a rich experience.
When I cook at home, I tend to think, "I made a delicious dish with my own efforts!" But today, I felt like I was making some small changes to delicious vegetables that were carefully grown. Vegetables sprouted from the ground, bore fruit, were harvested, cooked, and eaten. It's interesting how just seeing vegetables growing, something we don't see in our everyday lives, can change the way we cook. I don't want to forget that the vegetables in my fridge at home were also grown by someone and delivered to me.
Breakfast is also completed
For breakfast the next morning, I made a potage using fried free-range eggs, grilled vegetables from the day before, and leftover roasted eggplant. I also added a freshly baked croissant from the bakery in Crookfields, which made me super happy. I was full from the morning.
This time, I stayed at Cocoon in Crook Fields for two days and one night, and I realized that although I like the experience of being treated well at an inn, enriching the time I spend there myself is also a deep experience. Cooking is an active act, and it sparked my interest in the local area and food much more than eating food served at a restaurant. The time I spent here was intense, and I felt like I was bathed in the richness of life with my whole body. Yesterday, Tsuyoshi spoke about the concept of this inn as an "active inn," and I deeply agreed with him. It's not a relationship of providing hospitality and being treated, but rather a relationship of making the time we're here comfortable for both of us. It was a trip that touched not only on the richness of food, but also on the richness of new relationships with people through travel.
KURKKU FIELDS
| address | ： | 2503 Yana, Kisarazu City, Chiba Prefecture |
|---|---|---|
| access | ： | Take the Narita Express from Narita Airport to Chiba Station → Take the Uchibo Line from Chiba Station to Kisarazu Station (approx. 41 minutes) → Take the Kisarazu-Kamogawa Line bus from Kisarazu Station to the Crook Fields entrance (approx. 30 minutes) → Walk to Crook Fields (approx. 10 minutes) |
| telephone number | ： | 0438-53-8776 |
| web | ： | https://kurkkufields.jp/ |
Domestic Discount Fares Skymate
Limited to ages 12 and over and under 25!
Extremely affordable discount fares available for booking from the day of departure (4 hours before departure)
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The contents published are accurate at the time of publication and are subject to change.
