The ocean, the land, the ingredients, our teammates:
Let's bloom together here.
Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, is an ancient city bustling with inbound tourists and students on school trips.
If you turn into a side street just after entering Onari Street from the west exit of the station, it suddenly becomes a quiet residential area.
No way, is there a restaurant here? 
On the eaves of the old house, the words "BeBè" are written, and several customers are waiting on the bench.
The official name of the shop is "Latteria Bebè Kamakura".
In Italian, "latteria" means a shop that handles dairy products, and "bebè" means baby.
Through the window of the workshop, you can see Taishiro Yamazaki, the owner of the shop,
holding pure white cheese in his hands.
His older brother, Kentaro, bakes pizzas in the stone oven in the center of the restaurant's kitchen.
The brothers opened a cheese factory and an Italian restaurant in 2015
in Kamakura, a place they had become familiar with through surfing since their teenage years.
Milky and juicy, fresh bebè born daily
Shredded cheese curds and 90°C salt water are placed in a large stainless steel tub and mixed with a drumstick-like rod. The curds (called "pasta" in Italy) are made by heating and pasteurizing raw milk, then adding lactic acid bacteria and rennet in sequence, solidifying it into a tofu-like consistency, cutting it into cubes, and draining the whey. It is then put through a machine to be finely cut.
The curds gradually become stringy and are then wrapped together to form a single mass.
Holding it with both hands, Yamazaki then pushes a certain amount through the circle formed by his thumb and forefinger (a comparison that only people from the Showa era will understand, but it's very similar to a washcloth in a public bath), tears it off, and drops it into a water tank to cool.
The result is a bright white, plump, and chewy mozzarella.
The Italian word for "to tear" is "mozzare," which is the origin of the cheese's name. Taishiro Yamazaki performs this series of tasks rhythmically and quickly.
"To make it milky and juicy, I finely adjust the amount of hot water depending on the condition of the curds, and I determine the best moment to knead when it gets glossy and I think, 'Now!' It's like a baby's skin, isn't it? And that wonderful aroma rising from it. Every day, it feels like life is being born, and there's such a fresh joy in it. That's why I named the shop 'Bebè'."
Stracciatella and burrata are made using mozzarella as a base.
Stracciatella means "torn" and is made by tearing mozzarella and mixing it with fresh cream. Burrata is made by stretching mozzarella into a palm-sized flat circle, filling it with stracciatella, closing it in the same way as making a Chinese steamed bun, and tying it like a drawstring purse with a string of mozzarella.
"At our restaurant, we use cheese in many dishes, so to prevent it from becoming too rich, we use fresh cream with 38% fat for the stracciatella. However, burrata gets its name from "burro" (butter) and is characterized by its melting texture and rich flavor, so when wrapping it, we add a little 40% fresh cream to enhance its richness."
It's best consumed the day after production, but it can last for a week. Over time, those with fresh cream are said to become even richer in flavor.
Raw milk is sourced from Aizawa Ryo Dairy Farm in Seya Ward, Yokohama City, four times a week, around 4-5 AM. This milk is then low-temperature pasteurized at 63°C for 30 minutes to produce the three types of cheese mentioned above, as well as ricotta, mascarpone, and caciocavallo.
Finding my own path in Puglia (younger brother)
Why did Yamazaki choose to become a cheesemaker and open a shop in Kamakura with his brother, Kentaro?
"We grew up in Sakae Ward, Yokohama City, which borders Kamakura City. Both of us loved surfing and often came to Kamakura to play. We loved not only the ocean but also the atmosphere of the town since a long time ago. Because I wanted to surf, I worked as a bartender in Yokohama and spent my days at the beach in Kamakura until my early twenties. I'm a laid-back person, but I eventually realized I couldn't see a future doing that. Around that time, I was shocked to see the work of a skilled chef, and I was amazed by the power of cooking. I wanted to seriously learn how to cook, so I worked at 'Ratatouille,' a French restaurant, and 'Kusakituchi,' an organic restaurant, in Yokohama. I also wanted to see the real thing, so I traveled through Italy, France, and Spain for three months.
I was particularly drawn to Italian cuisine, and after returning to Japan, I worked at an Italian restaurant in Kamakura, and by then I had moved my residence to Kamakura. I traveled to Italy again, and for some reason, the southern region of Puglia fit me incredibly well. The simple cuisine, the warm nature of the people, the atmosphere I felt from the land... everything felt comfortable."
Still a surfing enthusiast. Taishiro has also been dedicated to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for the past six years.
Although he landed a chef position at a newly opened trattoria by "El Camino," a company that imports Italian wine and runs restaurants, offering Puglian cuisine, he soon "hit a wall, naturally, because he didn't know enough." Yamazaki flew to Puglia again.
"First, I enrolled in a cooking school, visited pasta and cheese factories, olive farms, and cooked with celebrity chefs. After that, I worked in a restaurant, but it was time to consider returning to Japan. I felt a sense of urgency that if I returned to Japan as I was, I would be buried among the many chefs with extensive Italian training experience unless I acquired something unique to myself."
That's when cheese came to mind. Puglia is known for its stracciatella and burrata, and mozzarella is also a Southern Italian cheese. He often saw "mammas" (mothers) going to dairies with bowls to buy these fresh cheeses. This reminded him of the old days in Japan, when people would go to tofu shops with pots to buy tofu.
He wanted to provide freshly made cheese in Japan. And if he teamed up with his brother, who was training to become a Neapolitan-style pizzaiolo, they could open a restaurant that offered pizzas and dishes made with homemade cheese. It was the moment he "saw his future."
He trained at a cheese factory in Puglia, and after returning to Japan, he gained experience in the dairy product manufacturing department of "Kashiwagi Farm" in Isehara, Kanagawa. He then honed his skills by being involved in all aspects of fresh cheese production at "CHEESE STAND," a famous fresh cheese factory in central Tokyo. He commuted from Kamakura to Shibuya on the first train every morning for a year.
Focusing on Neapolitan pizza, simple yet profound (older brother)
On the other hand, Kentaro, like his younger brother, spent his twenties with surfing as the center of his lifestyle, working in restaurant kitchens from evening until late at night. He even lived in Australia for a time, chasing waves.
"I also wanted something to be my own strength, so I focused on Neapolitan pizza. It's a simple dish, cooked primitively in a wood-fired oven. It might be presumptuous, but I felt that its analog nature suited my personality. The fact that it's profoundly deep once you delve into it was also appealing."
He contacted the "Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (AVPN Japan)" and, through their introduction, trained for three years in Neapolitan pizza at "Honami Kaido Midori no Ischia," an Italian restaurant in Tsuruoka, Yamagata. He also underwent a short training period in Naples, the home of pizza. While working as a pizzaiolo at "Pizzeria Terzo O'kei" in Shinbashi, Tokyo, Taishiro invited him to "open a restaurant together in Kamakura."
"Precisely because my brother and I have a good relationship, I initially declined. I thought that if it became a business, it might not work out. However, my brother seemed to take it as a given that we would work together. So, I also moved from Tokyo to Kamakura."
Part 2-----
The property they found through a real estate agent was in an excellent location, just a two-minute walk from the station, yet it was a hidden gem even they, who knew Kamakura well, didn't know about. This part will introduce their journey from opening to the present, and the appeal of their cuisine.
