Mao Shiotsu wrote . . . . . . . . .
The fourth course came nestled in a narrow, emerald fish-shaped dish: three pieces of bonito tataki (flash-grilled) so fresh, they might have just come swimming on the early summer breeze.
At Kyoto's Muromachi Wakuden, a kappō-style restaurant bearing one Michelin star, the three tataki slices leaned staggered on a small mound of shaved onions, accompanied only by ponzu. Freshly back from a year of studying cuisine in France, I was struck by the subtlety of this course — visually simpler than the dishes I had encountered that past year, yet exuding an unparalleled confidence, the elegant fattiness of the bonito creating a velvet cloak on the tongue.
After the meal, I exited onto the streets of Kyoto with a peculiar feeling. Every one of the nine courses at Muromachi Wakuden was understated but carved a demanding presence. Similarly refined dining experiences in France had excited me with the limitless culinary creativity of chefs, but this was different. Over those two hours, I had glimpsed something — the dishes I had just communed with seemed rooted in a long-standing, crystallized philosophy, one that is perhaps uniquely Japanese.
While Japanese fine dining is not as categorically defined as French gastronomie, a culture of refined dining has long existed in the country. What we see today is the product of dining styles evolved over centuries, most notably kaiseki ryōri, birthed in the 16th century as an offshoot of highly ritualized tea ceremonies. Kaiseki provided an important base for Japanese haute cuisine, introducing a linear flow connected by common seasonal threads.
I spoke to Muromachi Wakuden Head Chef Daisuke Ogawa about what he considers important in his cooking. A ryōrinin (cook) who evidently approaches food with undecorated honesty, Ogawa replies: "The diners' kimochi (feeling)." He wants each diner to enjoy "the best moment of the best ingredients," a crucial belief that what is worth serving to the diner is a purified presentation of nature's offerings — dishes stripped down to display the natural flavors, textures and colors.
"Food is a living thing," he says, and thus it is not the chef who designs the menu; it is nature. For instance, a fish he planned on serving would be removed from the menu if he couldn't find it fresh at the market that morning. The Japanese chef, therefore, faces the gargantuan task of preparing an ingredient to best portray its natural greatest — they're a facilitator of nature, perhaps.
In French cuisine, where a dish often tells a story, creativity has always been an important pillar. Chef Satoshi Amitsu, founding chef of Baillotte Restaurant in Paris and previously sous-chef of the three-Michelin-starred Restaurant Georges Blanc told me, "The French and Japanese sensitivities are completely different," something evident throughout the cooking process. A dish is the French cook's self-expression.
At Baillotte, Amitsu "tell(s) the stories that have led to this moment," portraying his Japanese roots with a French flair. This shows in a vibrantly colorful dish of langoustine ravioli in a cardamom and coriander-spiced broth complete with bamboo shoots and French algae salad, inspired by his mother's wakatakeni (dashi-simmered bamboo shoots and wakame seaweed). The plate is his canvas, the ingredients his pigments and the flavors his paint.
Simone Rossini, pastry chef at Restaurant Georges Blanc, has a similar approach. Trained at Osteria Francescana and other prestigious kitchens in his native Italy, he believes in the importance of "recounting a story" (he gave the example of "The Crunchy Part of the Lasagna," a reimagined version of the Italian classic and brainchild of Massimo Bottura). This April, I had the pleasure of tasting one of Rossini's own creations: a dainty mound of hibiscus mousse on a thumb-sized rum baba, topped with candied lime zest. It was then that I noticed the warm gusts of wind that had begun to blow in the quaint French village of Vonnas, an announcement of the coming of spring.
Seasonality is undoubtedly important in French and Italian fine dining, too. In recent decades, French gastronomie has seen a tendency toward freshness, a key change defining nouvelle cuisine, a lighter style of cooking considered to have been inspired by Japan. Amitsu states that the "sensitivity of Japanese cuisine is evident in the emphasis on ingredient quality."
Italy and France both pride themselves on the quality of national produce, crucial in their globally admired home-cooking. When it comes to the portrayal of nature in luxury dining, however, there seems to be a key distinguishing factor from that in Japan. At Muromachi Wakuden, the summer season is expressed by the simple, unembellished presentation of bonito. Nature's product speaks for itself. In Rossini's dessert, each ingredient is created into something lighter, softer, refashioned to resemble a dainty flower bud. It is the story of spring, narrated by a person.
People thus seem to occupy an important position. This may even be evident in the name of esteemed restaurants, often named after the chef in France, but rarely so in Japan. The dishes, Ogawa believes, are just one part of the overall restaurant ambience.
"The diners are the main characters," Ogawa states. "To cook is to gratefully receive the life that nature shares with us."
There seems to be one common thread, though, that weaves through these differing approaches to fine dining — that of art. Amitsu interprets this as something that "moves people's hearts." Perhaps the beauty of fine dining is born when the diner feels, rightly or wrongly, why the chef created the dish. By these definitions, the storytelling in Italian and French fine dining, giving diners a memory or an emotion, are clearly art forms.
I ask Ogawa if he considers Japanese cuisine to be art. I was surprised by his answer: "No. In art, the artist is the main character."
For Ogawa, the plate is not a canvas for his self-expression, but rather, just one way to allow the diner a special experience. I wonder, though, whether Japanese cuisine could be an art where the audience, rather than the creator, is the main character. I would not know how else to understand the beauty of those three bonito slices that afternoon in Kyoto.
Source: Japan Times
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