Kawabun is a long-established restaurant dating from the first half of the 17th century. Its history begins after the building of Nagoya Castle. The founder of the Kawachiya Bunzaemon line was among those moved from Kiyosu to the new city of Nagoya, with its checkerboard layout, in the transfer of the local urban center. He first opened a fishmonger’s called Kawachiya. Then, after the fish he presented in tribute to the Owari House of Tokugawa won high praise, he became a caterer and restaurateur. In the Edo period, the street called Uonotana-dori was lined with four eating establishments: Onaya (established by Onaya Niemon), Kinnao (established by Ohmiya Naokichi), Ohmata (established by Ohno Mataemon), and Kawabun. These came to be known in the neighborhood as The Four Eaves of Uonotana.

About the 1820s, geisha began to entertain at the drinking parties held at ryotei (restaurants), and in 1873 a union of geisha called “Seieiren” was born in Kami Choja-machi. Kawabun became the establishment where Nagoya’s best geisha appeared and was thereafter sometimes called “Kawabun, place of gei (art)”.

As the foremost guest house in central Japan from the Meiji period on, it received such guests as prime ministers Hirobumi Ito, Yoshida Shigeru, and Tanaka Kakuei, former French president Mitterrand, and other prestigious visitors from Japan and abroad. It continues to be loved by many well-known figures.

That which changes gradually with the background of the times in the history of 400 years is also a trajectory in which successive masters continue to challenge and change in order to pass on culture.