Restaurant to Another World is based on a series of light novels, and if you miss the food porn and fanservice of Food Wars as much as you miss the girls of Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, you’ll really enjoy this one.
Restaurant to Another World’s big star is the titular restaurant, Nekoya, which sees a clientele of normal salarymen and office ladies most of the week, but opens to “another world” at midnight once a week. The show throws us into the restaurant without hesitation: we meet its clientele of beastmen and adventurers squabbling over the best accompaniment to rice without any further backstory than “these otherworldly folk sure do love this restaurant’s food.”
I love this anime’s uncomplicated approach to its premise: another show might belabor the restaurant’s dual nature or bog itself down in unnecessary backstory, but Restaurant to Another World trusts that you are smart enough to follow what it’s doing. And you are! The mere threat of never being cooked for again gets all these rowdy folks to fall into line immediately, so you know the food’s good.
Restaurant to Another World puts its budget where its food is: when the teriyaki glaze glimmers on a piece of chicken and the curry gleams in a bowl of curry rice, you know you’re in for a culinary treat. Warning: don’t watch this show if you don’t have a Japanese food place that delivers, because you may well be overcome by a longing for a good bowl of beef stew or yummy pork loin cutlet. Even the sound of a piece of chicken falling to the floor is too juicy to bear. (Yes, my Grubhub order is on its way, and yes, it was curry rice.)
There’s a heaping of bouncing boobalicious fanservice in the form of an elder dragon who considers the restaurant part of her treasure hoard. When she’s ready to go to the restaurant to eat, she transforms into human form, has a minion prepare her a dress and clears the restaurant so she can eat alone. (Watching her in dragon form carefully dip her tongue into a pot of beef stew nowhere near appropriately sized for her enormity is pretty funny.)
I can’t say that the animation in every moment is superb - you can definitely tell when they used more of their budget than not, and those resources are almost always lavished on food (though the dragon’s hoard and boobs get a little extra polish as well). It’s also weird how much more animated the chef’s voice is than his face, whose generic design also leads to a feeling of blandness.
But ten minutes in, a plot starts to move. A begrimed young girl named Aletta sneaks into the kitchen and is discovered. We hear her tragic story: she’s half-demon, but lacks the physical and magical strength that marks most of her brethren. She bears only a pair of small black goat horns, which cause her more trouble than anything, as humans in the royal capital will not hire demons. Curled up amongst rubble in an inhospitable ruin, she can’t sleep due to hunger and spots the door to Nekoya. She passes through, finds food, consumes it and falls asleep.
After sharing a staff meal together, the Nekoya’s chef-master kindly hires her once a week for a 14-hour shift to wait on his otherworldly patrons. As for the elder dragon, she’s not a jealous sort: since the Nekoya is part of her treasure, the new girl has become a part of her treasure as well. We close with a shot of Aletta glittering like gold, blessed by the dragon’s protection as she sleeps on a bed of hay, clean, relieved and grateful.
Both the opening and closing themes are more than adequate; the opening is bouncy and energetic, while the closing is a calm, sweet ballad. Aletta is an endearing character with an appealing design and probably the most unique look we’ve seen in the show so far. I’m not sure whether or not Restaurant to Another World will feature one overarching plot or if its episodes will be snippets of life at Nekoya, but either way, I look forward to seeing what shenanigans will ensue at this otherworldly restaurant.
Restaurant to Another World airs Mondays on Crunchyroll at 2:05 p.m EDT. Will you be adding it to your queue? Feel free to let us know in the comments section below.
