Cuisine as Culture

/ beyond /F O O D

Cuisine as Culture

Two kaiseki chefs, each with a different approach, offer a delicious glimpse of Japan on seasonal plates that are intriguing, beguiling and unforgettable. STORY AND PHOTOS BY CHRISTOPHER KUCWAY “CHOCOL ATE?” Once an animated Kenichi Hashimoto hears that, he darts off to the kitchen faster than the Japanese puns that roll off his tongue for a rendezvous with a French confectioner. Our table of five is left to enjoy his latest course, dubbed “one-bite dish,” knowing full well there’s very little that is conventional about his take on kaiseki, and the same holds true of the cherubic, fun-loving chef. “I just want to break Japanese etiquette,” Hashimoto tells us before we dive into his 11-course meal at The RitzCarlton’s Food & Wine Festival (ritzcarlton.com) in Tokyo, “so I start

74

with these appetizers that you can eat in any order.” Wait a minute, isn’t kaiseki known for its formalized meals, for following tradition? Those ideals, it turns out will be explained on a course-by-course basis.

I’m at the festival largely because two of Japan’s best kaiseki chefs— Hashimoto and Ryusuke Nakatani, both Michelin-starred—are on the menu, and in this day and age of kitchen stars, this is a great opportunity to learn something about this local ritual—through translators—or, on a more modest level, to enjoy some of the best Japanese haute cuisine around.

DECEMBER 2015 / TR AV EL ANDLEISURE ASIA .COM

Nakatani runs Ajikitcho Horie (1-22-6 Kitahorie, Nishi-ku, Osaka; 81-6/6543-1741; ajikitcho.jp; dinner sets from ¥20,000) in Osaka, while Hashimoto is the face behind Ryozanpaku (5 Izumidono-cho, Yoshida, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto; 81-75/7714447; ryozanpaku.net; omakase dinner from ¥12,000) in Kyoto.

While the two are not opposites, they do approach kaiseki from entirely different angles. Wisecracking Hashimoto likes to make serious points about his dishes through humor. That morning, I had run into him at breakfast where he asked in broken English if I was

going to his dinner. Yes, I told him.

“Me too!” he laughed as he padded off to the buffet. On the other hand, the already soft-spoken Nakatani reverentially lowers his voice further when speaking of his craft.

Like most kaiseki chefs, he first spent a decade simply studying Japanese haute cuisine and has been preparing it now for 20 years.

Hashimoto, you might have guessed, is self-taught, which is almost unheard-of in the kaiseki world.

Though the journeys to the plate differ, their menus fall into the same parameters—a set of elaborate appetizers, sashimi, a grilled dish followed by a steamed course and even one hidden in a bowl.

Kaiseki is derived from 16thcentury Japanese tea ceremonies. It’s a formalized affair in an intimate but comfortable setting that celebrates the seasons through natural and local ingredients. So this isn’t simply cuisine but an integral piece of Japanese culture.

I start with a midday meal prepared by Nakatani. Our sakepaired lunch has a moon festival

theme: its ingredients are at their freshest in autumn. The menu is so reflective of what’s in season that it can change between what is printed one day and the meal itself the next.

In the soup course that follows appetizers, finely sliced matsutake are paired with a nutty and soft, skinless lotus root dumpling. With no discernable grain, the mushrooms are as delicate as they are delicious, a reminder of how fresh vegetables should taste. There’s also a zest of a lemon peel. Paired with sake from the Hakkaisan Brewery (hakkaisan.com) in Niigata Prefecture, the acidic—whether citrus or vinegar—comes into play against the liquor, in this case junmai-ginjo, pure rice sake with no distilled alcohol added.

Kaiseki courses are served one by one, each meant to complement the next; each of the dishes is individual, the meal a whole.

Nakatani’s sashimi course of sea bream, snow-white squid and crimson-colored tuna is so fresh it has me counting the city blocks to Tsukiji. And that tower of black jelly?

It turns out to be a delicious wedge of seaweed.

Kaiseki is driven by aesthetics as much as taste, and Nakatani’s hassun course, lives up to that ideal.

It arrives in a bamboo cage topped with red autumnal leaves. The attention to detail here in the mix of tofu, steamed abalone, roast duck, marinated persimmon and mackerel-rolled turnip makes this course almost too beautiful to eat.

Once we do, our taste buds switch into overdrive. And I’m glad for one little-known aspect of kaiseki: diners need not recognize all the flavors or even ingredients in each course. Simply enjoying the dish is what matters most. Surprising, salty, rich, smoky: our table runs out of modifiers for this artistic course we were afraid to devour.

Next up is a flaky grilled barracuda flavored with sudachi, a Japanese citrus fruit commonly used instead of vinegar. The dish is electrified by neon-orange sea urchin that sends shockwaves through my taste buds as if they had been dormant until this point in my

FROM LEFT: Grilled barracuda, vibrant sea urchin, local mushrooms and sudachi; laid-back, Nakatani is a picture of concentration when at work; his matsutake and lotus-root dumpling soup. OPPOSITE: Nakatani’s sashimi course of sea bream, squid and tuna.

TR AV EL ANDLEISURE ASIA .COM / DECEMBER 2015

75

TO READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE IN OUR CURRENT ISSUE,.

SUBSCRIBE TO TRAVEL+LEISURE SOUTHEAST ASIA..

SUBSCRIBE NOW

TO OUR DIGITAL EDITION

1 year / 12 issues for US$29.99.

Available at www.zinio.com/TravelandLeisureAsia

powered by