TRAVEL THE FREQUENT FLIER JAPAN SILVERSEA
TRAVELIFE MAGAZINE
IN HOKKAIDO AGAIN,
For a Reason and a Season
H
okkaido is beautiful in any season, but my favorite times to visit are in early autumn when the island is awash with the fiery red of trees making the transition to winter, and in late summer when the tourist arrivals have subsided and the weather is perfectly pleasant.
CHASING SUMMER
BATHING IN THE FALL
Maccarina is the sister establishment of Moliere, a Michelin three-star French restaurant in Sapporo, Hokkaido’s capital, that served one of my best lunches in recent memory. It was this very experience last October that prompted me to seek it out in the middle of nowhere last month, even if it diverted slightly from my favored pattern of luxury lodgings with amazing interiors and unforgettable views.
In October last year, I spent a relaxing weekend traipsing around one part of this rather large island with the foliage and climate of Europe and some of the most potent hot springs waters in the world. It’s mostly nature out there, although occasionally you will find neighborhoods of boxed structures that bring to mind the towns of Iceland.
Ten months later, which was just last month, I was back in Hokkaido for another long weekend of R&R right at the end of summer. This time, we began our holiday just outside the famous skiing area of Niseko, in a B&B at the edge of a nondescript town that I chose specifically for its food.
in Spain, just across the border from Bordeaux and considered one of the best restaurants in the world. Like Mugaritz, it was confidently clean, with more chefs than diners, and these ones were so focused on work that they never were distracted even once by the flash from my clicking camera.
A DINNER TO REMEMBER
Meanwhile, the cooking at Maccarina is evidently inspired by the great French chef Michel Bras, whose personalized scribblings on a plate is displayed prominently by the entrance, and whose famous salad of anywhere between 30 and 100 ingredients so obviously inspired one of the courses in a dinner we thoroughly enjoyed.
“We had brought with us a Bordeaux red from an excellent vintage, and with this we toasted repeatedly to the joys of being alive, and to the
It was a trip with few expectations, fueled only by a desire for good food and new discoveries. Without pausing for breathe, we’d landed in Sapporo and driven to the seaside town of Otaru for a sushi lunch before backtracking to a hot springs inn by a lake in an area so remote and cold that the first snow of Japan for 2014 had fallen as we stepped outside for a walk.
Maccarina’s hotel was a simple cottage made even more spartan by the Japanese penchant for modesty in size and furnishings, although not in price, in this case. Driving for about three hours straight from the airport and arriving in the middle of dinner, we dropped our bags in our room and hungrily walked across the field to the restaurant.
After a week in the rather chaotic madness of Southeast Asia and a way too early morning flight out of Manila to Hong Kong to catch the connecting flight to Sapporo, the unpretentious setting immediately put me at ease. I finally was able to relax over a delicious meal with the chirping of the last of the summer crickets as background music.
Even now, remembering this all too short holiday we managed to squeeze into our rather busy schedules and complicated lives still makes me smile.
In contrast to the hotel, the restaurant was a massive building with an open kitchen twice the size of its dining area that reminded me somewhat of Mugaritz
The figurative icing on the cake that night was a Bordeaux red from an excellent vintage that we had brought with us from Manila; with this we toasted repeatedly to the joys of being alive, and to the good fortune of living a never-ending Travelife.
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PHOTOS BY CHRISTINE CUNANAN.
good fortune of living a never-ending Travelife.”