Omote-sando's cafe-restaurant Las Chicas needs no introduction. But few realize that the two-floor building in which it is situated was once a consulate, designed to wrap around the central courtyard -- one of the nicest places to eat in town. Under the umbrella organization Vision Network, the complex provides a home for any number of enterprises with an "alternative edge."

The left-hand flank of the building operates under the name Co:exist. Finding the ground floor of Kyozon -- a multifunction wood-floored space -- empty but for some futuristic-looking costumes in poses that suggested the wearers had just beamed up to Scottie, I ventured upstairs to smoke out Maria Adriana -- or Mariana, as she signs off in a singular fusion. It is she who, together with her husband, largely run the show.

The director of Co:exist (and by implication also Kyozon) cheerfully admits that she never uses her full name, Maria Adriana Verdaasdonk, because "it runs off the sides of name cards." Tets, who slipped into a chair alongside his partner, is Tetsutoshi Tavata. And the 'v' is correct: "It's Tabata, but I like Tavata more."