SUSHIEMON Dogo

This is a new-build, company-run restaurant opened in Dogo Onsen, the heart of Matsuyama's tourism, by Sushiemon, a casual sushi chain born in Uwajima, Ehime, and loved locally for the fresh local fish it serves as a business run directly by a seafood company. The third Sushiemon in Matsuyama, it opened in March 2026.

A major theme of the project was giving the building an exterior expression suited to this place. The site lies within an area subject to landscape planning regulations, in a corner of Dogo, where the public and private sectors have worked together on townscape improvement for many years. It also stands very close to Dogo Miyu and Dogo Hakuro, which we designed with care for the streetscape along the road. So rather than an exterior covered in colorful graphics like the chain's existing roadside restaurants, we aimed for the face of a flagship restaurant: one that blends into the local landscape while drawing the eyes of visitors from Japan and abroad.

Symbolizing our answer is a band of pierced panels that runs like a crown along the top of the exterior walls. The yudama (hot-water bubble) motif is traced from the balustrades of the Dogo Onsen Main Building, which were made by hand by craftsmen, each one with a different design. We combined it with patterns shaped like various kinds of seafood to design the panels, and had them fabricated by a familiar ironworks that specializes in one-off laser-cut pieces. By day they draw a delicate silhouette against the sky; by night, lit from within, their patterns float into view. The road-facing side is glazed almost entirely, so that the bright, lively scene inside reaches the street through the dark gray frame.

The interior, too, was designed with the Dogo location and visitors from other prefectures and overseas in mind. Compared with the chain's earlier restaurants, it offers a special space with a balanced blend of Japanese splendor, liveliness, and calm. On the walls of the entrance vestibule that first greets guests are Kikuma roof-tile tiles by Kawaraya Kikusada (Shinzo Koizumi), with whom we also collaborated at Dogo Miyu, and the "Sushiemon" lettering mounted above them is also made of roof tile. Above the seating, based on natural wood tones, hangs a structure modeled on the timber framework of a mikoshi (portable shrine), and behind the cashier counter is a wall shelf displaying illuminated local sake. The counter in front of the sushi preparation station, the eye-catcher of the interior, is likened to the Seto Inland Sea sparkling in the sunlight. The transom-like decoration running above the preparation station and the mural evoking a tairyo-bata (fishermen's good-catch flag) at the back of the restaurant also add a festive touch to the space.

Designing restaurants, and especially casual chain restaurants with an established brand image, brings particular tensions for an architectural practice. There are things we usually value, such as the quality of space and the feeling that dwells within it, that are hard to put into words. Before things that are visible and easily put into numbers or words, they can all too easily be swept away: operational efficiency and return on investment, the average comfort and safety acceptable to an unspecified public, and the image of the restaurant that both its owners and the public already hold, along with the formulaic design methods that come with it.

Yet for a business that runs on profit, this is only natural. That is exactly why, within those constraints, we keep up a patient dialogue with the client, driven by the wish as architects to propose and realize something new, even if only by one percent, and present an image the client can embrace. Of course, this must never be the designer's self-serving indulgence; in the end, it has to be something that pleases both the client and its customers. In this project, partly because of how special the Dogo location is, the client itself was motivated to raise its image a step higher. Thanks to this, from among real-world constraints and these tensions, we were able to realize a design that went beyond what the client had first imagined.

Since opening, the restaurant has become a popular spot with strong drawing power throughout the year, especially on weekends and during holiday seasons. Its exterior, designed with care for the area, has refreshed the image of the Sushiemon brand and has been warmly received by local people, including the surrounding inns and hotels.