There is a woman in a detention cell who insists on real butter. Never margarine. We’re cooking from her book.

Manako Kajii, the enigmatic protagonist of Asako Yuzuki's Butter, seduces not with charm but with food - rich, unapologetic, deeply considered food. And somehow, through prison walls, she changes the life of every woman who comes near her.

On 3 May 2026, Book-A-Table invites you to sit with this extraordinary novel over a grazing table inspired entirely by its pages. Every dish is drawn directly from the book. You will eat what Rika eats. You will taste what changes her. 

The food is only half of it. Butter is a novel that asks uncomfortable questions - about appetite and ambition, about the way women are judged for wanting things, about desire as resistance. Our book discussion is designed to go there: guided but unhurried, with space for the observations you've been turning over since the last chapter. You don't need to have all the answers. You just need to have read the book and shown up hungry.

Come having read the book. Come hungry.