Restaurant, gallery reaches for the ideal

By Reggie Cantù

There is a place where you can relax and let your artistic impulses run wild – all while enjoying a fantastic view of Half Moon Beach. It’s called Doka Doka.

Doka Doka is an ideal environment that master potter Akira Tamada created in a beautiful structure, housing a pottery studio, gallery and informal café.

The building is not in the “traditional” style. The pitched roof and concrete walls are definitely modern. But the soaring ceiling and carefully crafted wood finishes reflect Tamada’s esthetic sensibilities.

Although part gallery, the master potter says he started Doka Doka to show that his art is more than mere eye candy. He opened the establishment in April of 2011.

“I wanted people to see what the work was for,” says 61-year-old. “Not just for decoration but to really use it.” He echoes famed potters Shoji Hamada and Bernard Leach who said pottery should have function as well as beauty.

Tamada also tries to provide a satisfying experience with the food he and his wife, Taeko, offer.

The limited menu items are all homemade with the finest natural ingredients. This includes a tofu cream pie with homemade tofu. Two types of pizza, taco rice, and ki-ma curry are served, as well as a couple of toast and coffee or tea sets. The coffee and tea are organic, costing 500 yen per cup, and can be enjoyed at the open end of the establishment overlooking the East China Sea.

Patrons can also browse the exquisite pieces of ceramic ware that line the walls. “Okinawa is blessed with natural beauty and has established its own unique expression in the craft work of its people,” he said. “I have been learning from that tradition and I devote myself to this creative pursuit.”

He learned about the resurgence of Okinawan pottery as a young man in mainland Japan, where he was born. It was a craft that diminished during World War II, but had been fostered by the American commission charged with rebuilding and administering the island after the war.

Pottery making in Japan had a long history, but like many aspects of the culture it had evolved into a formal set of acceptable practices and applications. 

Tamada says he was impressed with the Okinawan pottery he encountered because of its less-formal, more free-flowing style, and he was determined to learn how it was accomplished. In 1975, he sought out Yomitan potter Tsunehide Shimabukuro.

“I knocked on his door and asked if he would teach me, but he said ‘no,’” Tamada recalls. “I tried many times but the answer was always the same.”

He adds that he discovered the teacher’s proclivity for “awamori” spirits and brought him a bottle of the very finest, which caused Shimabukuro to finally agree to mentor him.

Thirty-six years later, Tamada is considered a master, with numerous awards and honors. For example, at the 2000 Global Summit at Busena Terrace Beach Resort attended by President Bill Clinton and other world leaders, dinner was served on Tamada’s tableware.

But he is not as reluctant to take on students as his old teacher was. He offers a variety of choices to aspiring ceramicists, from working with a potter’s wheel to coiling techniques to decorative applications, at reasonable prices in his downstairs studio.

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