A Fijian Restaurant in Okinawa

Big cities have a particular kind of culinary beauty, where you can taste things from different corners of the world, sometimes unexpectedly. And yet, one day a random thought crossed my mind: Pacific Island cuisine is not easily found.

When I lived in London I thought I might come across more, since many Pacific islands, especially in Melanesia, were once British colonies. But no luck there either.

Then I learned that there is a Fijian restaurant in Okinawa, of all places. It is called Airando, which means… “island” in Japanese.

I first visited Airando in 2024, and recently spoke with Mami Kumar, who runs the restaurant in Kouri Island with her husband Eddie, who is originally from Nadi, Fiji.

How a Fijian Restaurant Ended Up in Kouri

Mami is from Naha, and the two met when she was in Fiji to study English. They married and moved to Okinawa to raise their daughter, Aira. The couple initially ran an English language school in Naha, but they wanted to do something to introduce Fijian culture to others.

Kouri Island is a small island off the coast of the Okinawan main island, 85 kilometers north of Naha. In 2005, the Kouri Ohashi bridge connected Kouri to Yagaji Island, which is connected to the main island by bridge.

After visiting beaches across Japan, Eddie says he noticed that the sea around Kouri felt strikingly close to the sea in Fiji, and thought the tropical atmosphere of Okinawa could be a natural backdrop for introducing Fijian food and culture. Kouri is where Mami’s grandparents are from, and the restaurant now occupies a space that belongs to them. Neither Mami nor Eddie had any restaurant experience, but the two built the menu from recipes passed down by Eddie’s mother and grandmother in Fiji.

“We were around 27 at the time,” Mami told me. “Young enough to not really know what we should be afraid of.”

Flavors of Fiji in Okinawa

I asked Mami how customers responded when they opened in 2019. “Many Japanese guests often don’t know a lot about Fiji,” he said, laughing. “And on the flip side, this is the only restaurant in Japan where you can actually eat Fijian food. A lot of people come in because it is rare.”

Fiji sits in Melanesia but geographically and culturally borders Polynesia, and the cuisine carries traces of both.

What makes Fiji distinct, though, is its South Asian influence. During the British colonial rule starting in the late 1800s, indentured laborers were brought from British India. Their descendants, known as Indo-Fijians, now make up a significant part of the population, and over generations, their cooking has fused with Indigenous iTaukei cuisine.

Mami summed up the food culture in a sentence: “The pillars of Fijian food are coconut, taro, cassava, seafood and curry. The curries come in many forms. Coconut stews and marinated dishes are delicious.”

The restaurant’s signature dish is the Fiji shrimp curry, a light, fragrant dish with whole shrimp, made with coconut cream and curry leaves picked from Eddie’s family home back in Fiji.

Kokoda, a Fijian dish similar to ceviche, made with fresh fish marinated in coconut milk, lime juice and spices, is also popular.

The menu also features more unique fusion takes like the Fiji Fusion Roti, which uses Fiji’s everyday flatbread as the base for tacos, filled with Okinawan-style pork belly. A vegan version using cassava is also available.

I had assumed the ingredients would be the hardest part, but Mami told me that Okinawa and Fiji actually have a surprising amount of overlap.

“The trickiest part at first was sourcing taro and cassava, the staple starches in Fiji,” she said. “But we eventually found a local farmer in Okinawa we trust, and now they grow them for us. Beyond that, the culinary ingredients and climate are similar enough that a lot of the ingredients we need are already grown here.”

Okinawa, geographically and culturally distinct from mainland Japan with its subtropical climate and long history of trade with the wider region, ends up being one of the few places in Japan where Fijian cooking can be created using mostly local produce.

What’s Next

The restaurant has been running for over seven years now, with its popularity growing, becoming one of the known attractions of the island. I asked Mami what comes next.

“We want to develop our own original products. Right now we have one original curry so people can have Fijian flavors at home, and we want to grow that lineup.” A packaged Fijian curry made in Okinawa, sent out into the rest of Japan and beyond.

For now, though, Airando remains the only place in Japan, and reportedly the only Fijian restaurant in all of Asia.

What strikes me most is the island-to-island connection.

So often we think of cross-cultural exchange as something cosmopolitan and urban, the work of big cities. But this is a different kind of exchange, one that follows the path taken by the coconut itself, drifting across the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, taking root wherever the climate would have it.

Airando Fiji Restaurant & Cafe
294-1 Kouri, Nakijin, Kunigami District, Okinawa
Website: http://airandofijicafe.com/