The Japanese clearly value tradition, yet for one reason or another – fire, natural disaster, the second world war, an enthusiasm for progress – there aren't many towns left that truly encapsulate the way things were. Kyoto has its temples, but in between them is a thoroughly modern city.
Takayama is different – an old castle town in the mountains of central Japan. You can still see the ruins of the 17th-century castle in the town's Shiroyama Park, but Takayama is much better known for its townscape of narrow lanes and low wooden buildings stained the colour of espresso. With its steep hills the town couldn't produce much rice, so it produced artisans instead. Many were carpenters, who would go on to work on the palaces and temples in Kyoto, then return to construct their signature lattice-front buildings for local merchants.
Takayama has a few beautifully preserved streets, now filled with perpetually crowded tourist shops, and there is also a slow encroachment of Disneyland-esque additions on the edges – new "old" buildings are sprouting up. To really get away from it all, you need to head deeper into the hills, to a tiny village like Maze. Consider it a pilgrimage: Maze happens to shelter one of Japan's best hidden culinary destinations.
Maze is 40km south of Takayama, enveloped by a bucolic nothingness of rice paddies and hills. A slick two-lane highway makes easy work of those hills, though considering there's hardly another car in sight one has to wonder if its construction was really necessary.
Its star, the Maruhachi Ryokan, doesn't advertise; and has almost zero online presence. The inn gets by entirely on repeat customers and word-of-mouth, and this is the way that the owner Chikako Hora prefers it. I get the sense that she agreed to let me write about her inn only because she believes that nobody would bother to travel from a foreign country to Maze (yes, that's a dare).
It looks like a classic Japanese country villa, with a low, horizontal frame capped by slate-coloured tiles. But it isn't a time capsule. The walls are crisp white planes, the tatami mats are silky and fresh and the futons are wonderfully fluffy. Along one highly polished wooden corridor, glass cutouts in the floor look down over the carp swimming in the pond below.
Most of Maruhachi's customers are anglers – when the wisteria starts to bloom in summer the fishing season begins in earnest. The fishermen arrive armed with long rods to fish for ayu (sweetfish), a river fish native to east Asia with delicate white meat that Japanese people will tell you tastes like watermelon. It doesn't; but it is light and sweet and perfect in the summer when skewered and barbecued over hot coals, seasoned with sea salt and eaten head to tail off the stick like an ice lolly.
But the spring months, before the anglers arrive, are the region's most spectacular – clumps of purple wisteria hang over fast-moving mountain streams teeming with amago (red-spotted trout) and iwana (white-spotted char). Unruly tufts of bright yellow-green foliage are run through with rivulets of dark evergreen.
Spring is also the season for sansai, mountain vegetables. These are the ferns and shoots that nose up through the ground when it thaws and sprout from the tips of branches. There are half-a-dozen or so more common ones, like kogomi (ostrich fern) and taranome (Angelica tree shoots). It's a foragers' paradise. In Maze, housewives with baskets pillage the mountainside for edible greens to sell at roadside stands. With only 1,500 people in the village, there aren't enough to do too much damage.
Dinner at Maruhachi is a feast of all of this. The 11-course meal is served in a private dining room on a low black lacquered table with mother-of-pearl inlays of dragons and flowers. Guests sit on floor cushions. With each course, the waitresses go through the ritual of opening the sliding paper doors, kneeling on the tatami and explaining the details of each dish.
The iwana is served as sashimi (raw and thinly sliced), rare for a river fish. It has a cool, clear flesh traced with silver that looks like the river in the sun, and just enough fat to give it a richness of flavour and texture. The leaner amago is skewered and grilled at the table. Sansai appear lightly swaddled in tempura, seasoned with matcha (green tea) salt. There is also homemade tofu spiked with yomogi (mugwort) and new potatoes dusted with egoma (wild sesame seeds). By the time the top-quality hida-gyu steak arrives, at around course number six, we're in heaven.
Midway through the meal, we are greeted at the table by Chikako herself. As the okami, the mistress of the inn, this is her role. It was a role that she was born into – her mother was the okami before her. There are inns that can trace their lineage back 10 generations; Maruhachi is comparatively a child – only two generations old.
She's graceful and charming, wearing a formal silk kimono; you'd never suspect that she's spent all afternoon in the kitchen. We invite her to stay and chat with us, to tell us about growing up in Maze. While making sure our sake cups stay full, she talks about her beloved river and the effects of the new road that make it easier to get in and out of the village (Chikako could do without it).
"There's nothing here!" she says, laughing. "Unless you get that, and in your heart really want that, you certainly wouldn't want to come all the way out here."
She has no idea how wrong she is.
• To get to Takayama from Tokyo station, take the Nozomi Shinkansen to Nagoya and change for the limited express Wide View Hida train to Takayama. The journey takes four hours and costs ¥14,200 (around £118) return. The same train stops at Gero, the nearest station for Maze; the trip between Takayama and Gero takes one hour and costs £17. A night at Maruhachi Ryokan (+81 576 47 2502) is £96 per person, dinner and breakfast included. Find a Japanese speaker to make a reservation, as no English is spoken at the inn. Guests will be shuttled to and from Gero station.
• Rebecca Milner is a writer based in Tokyo
