Narisawa: Japanese Nature Through European Taste

Narisawa is the restaurant of the Japanese chef Yoshihiro Narisawa (11/04/1969), born in Aichi Prefecture (in the Chūbu region). The son of a father who was a baker specializing in Western-style pastries, in 1988, at the age of 19, he traveled to Europe and spent eight years training in France, Switzerland, and Italy.

In 1988, he worked under Joël Robuchon (1945–2018); therefore, I assume he must have worked at Jamin (32, rue de Longchamp, Paris), where Robuchon was based from 1981 to 1993.

In 1990, he worked for Paul Bocuse (1926–2018) at the Auberge du Pont de Collonges.

He then went to Switzerland to work at the Hôtel de Ville de Crissier with Frédy Girardet (1936), precisely during Girardet’s final years in the kitchen before handing over the restaurant to Rochat.

After that, he went to Italy to work for Ezio Santin (1937) at Antica Osteria del Ponte (Cassinetta Lugagnano, near Milan), exactly during the period when the restaurant held three Michelin stars. Santin is also known as an Italian chef with a strong fascination for the Orient, recognized as one of the first ambassadors of Asian ingredients in Italian fine dining, introducing at the time little-known products such as Sichuan pepper.

An extraordinary résumé: four three-star restaurants, and three of them led by legendary chefs such as Robuchon, Bocuse, and Girardet!

In 1996, at the age of 26, he returned to Japan and opened the restaurant La Napoule in Odawara (Kanagawa Prefecture), which I understand is now closed.

In 2003, seven years later, he moved to Tokyo and opened Les Créations de Narisawa in the Aoyama district, where it is still located today. He chose a French name to make it clear that his cuisine was not strictly Japanese, but eight years later, in 2011, he renamed it simply Narisawa, dropping the French terminology.

As for Michelin, the Guide did not enter Japan until the 2008 edition (published in November 2007), which was a Tokyo-only guide and marked Michelin’s first foray into Asia. Therefore, although Tokyo is the city in the world with the most three-star restaurants and the highest number of Michelin-starred restaurants overall, the history of the Red Guide in Japan is relatively recent compared to its long-standing presence in Europe. Interestingly, Narisawa did not receive its stars until the following year, in the 2009 edition, when it was awarded two stars directly—stars it has retained ever since. It has never held just one star.
In 2025, it is one of the 26 restaurants in Tokyo holding two Michelin stars, alongside places such as Tempura Kondo, Florilège, and Den, which are probably the most internationally recognized. As a point of reference, Barcelona has five two-star restaurants and Paris has sixteen. Narisawa also holds a Michelin Green Star and is considered a pioneer of sustainable fine dining in Tokyo, being recognized as a leader in environmentally responsible culinary practices. In his discourse, Narisawa explains that he believes a chef’s duty is not only to cook, but also to preserve the ecosystem. This is why, at least once a year, he reportedly visits depopulated mountain villages to plant trees and clean forests. For him, all of this is closely linked to food security.

Regarding The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, the restaurant first appeared in 2009 (curiously, the same year it entered the Michelin Guide with two stars, even though the 50 Best had been operating in Japan since its inception in 2002). That year, it ranked at number 20 and, since then, it has consistently been classified among the top 30, except in 2021, 2022, and 2023, when it placed 45th, 51st, and 56th respectively, before climbing back up to position 21 in 2025. As always, the 50 Best rankings are rather Kafkaesque, with rises and falls that, at least from the outside, seem hard to explain.

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Within this trajectory, 2015 stands out as the year it reached 8th place, becoming the first Japanese restaurant ever to enter the top 10, a position it repeated in 2016.

In parallel, in 2013, the 50 Best organization created a new list, Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants, in which Narisawa appeared at number 1 (with RyuGin in second place). This was a very interesting strategy, considering that no Japanese restaurant—nor any restaurant in Japan—has ever reached the top 3 of The World’s 50 Best. By contrast, in Catalonia we have had El Bulli, El Celler de Can Roca, and Disfrutar on the podium, and not only that, all three have reached the number one position. Looking at Spain as a whole, we should also add Mugaritz, Etxebarri, and DiverXO, all three of which have reached the podium, although none of them has ever been ranked number one. In France, there have also been three restaurants in the top 3: Pierre Gagnaire, Mirazur, and Table by Bruno Verjus.

In that same year, 2013, the 50 Best organization also created a new award, the “Sustainable Restaurant Award,” which Narisawa also won, after being judged and audited by The Sustainable Restaurant Association. Other winners of this award include: Azurmendi (2014 and 2018), Relae in Copenhagen (2015 and 2016), Septime (2017), Schloss Schauenstein (2019), Boragó in Chile (2021), Aponiente (2022), Fyn in Cape Town (2023), Nobelhart & Schmutzig (2024), and Celele in Cartagena, Colombia (2025), among many others. This is because since 2018 the award has been given in triplicate—that is, also for the Latin America’s 50 Best and Asia’s 50 Best lists. In reality, it sometimes feels as if the system is designed so that everyone eventually wins some kind of prize.

In 2020 the award was not given due to COVID, although it was still awarded for the Asia and Latin America lists.

It has a score of 4.27 on Tabelog, meaning it is a restaurant that has received a large number of very high user ratings and is considered highly likely to satisfy diners, especially considering that only 0.07% of restaurants score above 4.

In 2018, Narisawa became the first Asian chef to receive the “Grand Prix de l’Art de la Cuisine” from the Académie Internationale de la Gastronomie (AIG), an award that has been presented since 1990 and which, in 2018, was also awarded to José Avillez of Belcanto in Lisbon.

Also in 2018, he appeared as a guest judge in the Japan episode of the first season of the television program “Todo el mundo a la mesa” (The Final Table). Even so, he does not have a regular television program in Japan and is not an especially famous chef there, except among gastronomy enthusiasts, of course.

In 2019, he was the chef in charge of the banquet for the G20 Summit in Osaka.

More recently, he appeared in the Danish documentary “Les estrelles Michelin des dels fogons” (Michelin Stars: Tales From the Kitchen), broadcast on March 17, 2025, on TV3’s program Sense ficció. In the documentary, he is shown visiting fishermen in Chita Bay (or the Chita Peninsula, Chita Hantō), located in the southwest of Aichi Prefecture—where Narisawa was born—in the central part of the island of Honshū. He also visits the “Satoyama Forest,” which I believe is a poor translation, as it creates confusion and makes it seem as though Satoyama were the name of a town or a specific region.

As for other restaurant projects, in April 2018 they opened Bees Bar by Narisawa, located about 300 meters from the flagship restaurant. It is a cocktail bar inspired by the concept of Satoyama, which I explain later at the beginning of the section “the meal,” but which broadly symbolizes harmony between humans and nature and is inspired by Japan’s premodern agricultural system. The venue is open only on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 4:00 p.m. to midnight, and in addition to snacks, it also offers cooked dishes, making it perfectly suitable for dinner.

In 2023, they also opened their first restaurant outside Japan, Narisawa Shanghai, located in the “1,000 Trees” complex—a site well worth seeing at least in images—which has held one Michelin star since November 2024. Narisawa explains that he wanted to open a restaurant in China because he admires Chinese food and culture, because he believes it would also be an opportunity to better understand the country, and because Japanese culture draws heavily from Chinese culture, with many aspects having been introduced from China. There, he works with local Chinese products such as Shandong beef, Fujian cuttlefish, and Wuxi peaches.

Regarding published books, the only one I know of is the Taschen book featuring photographs by Sergio Coimbra (São Paulo, 1952). After spending 25 years in the coffee industry, Coimbra studied photography in New York and, in 2010, founded STUDIO SC in São Paulo, considered the first food photography studio in South America. He became an internationally recognized culinary photographer, working with chefs such as Massimo Bottura, Heston Blumenthal, Pierre Hermé, Massimiliano and Raffaele Alajmo, as well as Quique Dacosta. He has exhibited at the Basque Culinary Center and at Japan House in Los Angeles, and he owns a tableware collection ranging from Chinese ceramics to modern Nordic pieces, which must be quite something to see.

Returning to the book itself, it does not only contain recipes. Photographer and chef travel throughout Japan to portray the products and producers from whom Narisawa sources ingredients for his dishes, while also visiting the artisans who craft the tableware and knives. The book presents food within its full context, offering an immersive journey through the country. It was published in 2021, exclusively in English. It is marketed as a new type of cookbook, although I immediately think of earlier works that also highlight producers and artisans, such as the remarkable La cuisine du gibier à plume d’Europe (2015) by Benoît Violier, Cook the Mountain (2020) by Norbert Niederkofler, and Sun and Rain (2020) by Ana Roš.

It is a large book—whether the content truly makes it a great book is another question—but it comes in a glossy lacquered box, weighs 15 kilograms, is limited to 1,000 copies, and costs €1,250. I would have liked to see it on the day I went to lunch at Narisawa, especially since it appears to be beautifully bound with embossed gold detailing, but between one thing and another, time ran short and it felt excessive to also ask about the book. So, even though I looked for it in several Tokyo bookstores that carry Taschen titles of this kind, I never managed to find it and have never actually held it in my hands.

He is a chef firmly embedded in the international conference circuit and has appeared at all the events one is expected to attend. From Gastromasa in Istanbul, to Identità Milano, San Sebastián Gastronomika, and also Madrid Fusión, where he has been present on several occasions: in 2010 he was named “most influential chef” by his peers; in 2015 he was already speaking about Satoyama and sustainable gastronomy; and this past January 2025 he was one of the “revolutionaries,” taking the stage at the opening of the conference as a central figure of the revolution, alongside Gastón Acurio, Carme Ruscalleda, Joan Roca, Quique Dacosta, Andoni Luis Aduriz, Heston Blumenthal, Ferran Adrià, Albert Adrià, Dani García, and Massimo Bottura.

Benjamín Lana asked him what had inspired him most about Spain, even though he had trained in France, Italy, and Switzerland, and whether there were Bullinian echoes in contemporary Japanese cuisine. Narisawa replied: “We learned to dream and to let ourselves go.”

In addition, he is a member of the International Council of the Basque Culinary Center and has been giving classes and lectures to the institution’s students for more than ten years.

When I interacted with him, he brought over the waitress who had served us to act as a translator, so it seems that he does not speak English—not even “thank you.” After my attempt to communicate with him in French, he also did not seem willing to use that language, which surprised me given the restaurants where he had worked.

Yoshihiro Narisawa is currently 56 years old and belongs to the generation of Japanese chefs such as Toru Okuda (1969) of Okuda in Paris and New York, Fumiko Kono (1969), a disciple of Alain Passard (1956), and Seiji Yamamoto (1970) of RyuGin; as well as to the same generation as chefs such as Albert Adrià (1969), José Andrés (1969), Paco Roncero (1969), Anne-Sophie Pic (1969), and Franck Putelat (1969) of La Table de Franck Putelat in Carcassonne.

He strikes me as one of the most internationally recognized Japanese chefs, and his son, Leo (or Reo) Narisawa (2000), is already working in the kitchen. After attending a boarding school in Massachusetts (USA) and studying at Connecticut College, in the spring of 2020—while he was still studying in the United States—Leo returned to Japan due to COVID and began working at Restaurant Narisawa alongside his father. In 2024, he was selected for the Forbes Japan 30 Under 30 list. On the day we dined at the restaurant, both father and son were present throughout the entire service, although neither of them addressed any diners, except for the father at the end of the meal, when I asked whether it would be possible to greet him.

THE LOCATION AND THE SPACE

The restaurant is located in the Minami-Aoyama neighborhood (literally, South Aoyama) of Tokyo’s Minato ward. Considered a desirable area, it is a quieter part of Aoyama than Kita-Aoyama (North Aoyama) around Omotesando. I recommend walking around the neighborhood and enjoying its boutiques—fashion, furniture, and design alike—the architecture of the buildings, the small and unexpected temples tucked into the residential streets, and the Aoyama Reien Cemetery, Shinto in style, located just 800 meters from the restaurant. Founded in 1873, it is the largest and oldest cemetery in the city.

The restaurant occupies a kind of annex on the ground floor of the Minamiaoyama Garden Court building, which means it does not feel like being at the base of a skyscraper. You enter through a small inner plaza, and from the street it is barely visible. The dining room is relatively small: just six square tables for two and one round table. I would say the total capacity is no more than 15 to 20 guests, and there is no private dining room. The space is discreet and especially quiet. There are no ostentatious valuables on display, no apparent luxury. The lighting is subdued, with the tables and plates well lit but within a rather dark atmosphere. Much of the wall space is black, and there are very narrow floor-to-ceiling windows that look onto the building’s inner plaza and sit behind the diners, providing a touch of indirect natural light.

We were the first to arrive (and the last to leave, as so often happens to us), and without asking, we were seated at what I consider the best table in the dining room: the round table closest to the kitchen, since the others were directly behind us. The tables are set with white tablecloths and armchair-style chairs. Upon arrival, the only thing on the table is an individual plexiglass piece with the letters “NARISAWA” placed in front of each diner, symbolizing the plate found at sushi counters. So, although the restaurant offers what they describe as “the comfort and luxury of a dining room,” the idea is to make the guest feel as if the chef were serving them from the other side of the counter. They also say that, as they aim to provide a personal experience for each diner, not a single glass or piece of cutlery is placed on the table before the meal begins. I understand that the “personal experience” lies in the choice of beverages, since the menu is fixed and everyone eats the same dishes.

The entire front-of-house team consisted of women. We were looked after by Ayumi, who provided excellent service in very good English—particularly notable in Japan, where most people do not speak the language. The staff wear white Adidas sneakers, and both the Narisawas (father and son) as well as Ayumi wear earpieces.

Throughout the meal we enjoyed clear views of the kitchen, the true nerve center of any restaurant. And we can say that what we ate was cooked by Narisawa-san himself. As at Arpège, where Alain Passard cooks and proves it by wearing a stained apron.

In fact, Narisawa-san is the one who works the grill. I find the role of the grill in professional kitchens quite curious: in “everyday” restaurants, it often feels like a punishment to be stationed there for a full shift, and every year workers abandon the season because they can no longer take it; whereas in fine dining restaurants, it is often the chef himself who alone handles this technique. To avoid going on too long, I will mention just one name: Jordi Vilà.

There seem to be very few staff members overall—roughly four in the dining room and four in the open kitchen—and it does not appear to be one of those restaurants swarming with stagiaires, unless they were working in areas of the kitchen that are not visible to the guest.

THE GASTRONOMIC OFFER

There is no à la carte option; they only offer a single tasting menu, called the “Chef’s Tasting Course,” priced at 68,000 yen (tax and service charge included), which is roughly €385 (VAT, service, and tip included).

WHAT WE DRANK

1 glass of Chardonnay 2021 from Says Farm (Himi, Toyama) – 6,000 yen (around €33).

This is a winery founded in 2007, which also operates a farm and a restaurant on its premises, and bottles certain wines specifically for Narisawa. It is located on a small hill in the countryside around the city of Himi, in Toyama Prefecture, about 400 km from Narisawa. Himi is a coastal city facing Toyama Bay, on the Sea of Japan. The area is known as Hokuriku, a sub-region of Chūbu. It has a humid subtropical climate, with mild summers and pleasant sea breezes blowing inland, cold winters with heavy snowfall, and annual rainfall of around 2,400 mm—extremely high precipitation.

An overly oak-driven Chardonnay, one I would describe as excessively made-up, dominated by sunflower seed notes and lacking marked complexity. Perhaps a wine that is too bland and not very evolutive. It would have felt heavy to drink it throughout the entire meal.

1 glass of Albariño Private Reserve 2022 from the same winery, Says Farm (Himi, Toyama) – 3,000 yen (around €16).

With this Albariño, I had the opposite experience. Even though it did not particularly excite me, it showed itself to be open, straightforward, and fresh. A good starting point for discovering Japanese wines.

1 bottle of Saint François Argile à Silex 2022, a Sancerre from Domaine André Vatan, at 15,000 yen (plus the 10% service charge, which was not included), that is, around €85.

Truthfully, I have tasted many Sancerres that were far better and more interesting. With low aromatic intensity and rather uninspiring acidity, it made me reconsider pairing not only the Narisawa menu but also the rest of my meals on my Japanese trip with sake instead of wine.

The wine list is heavily focused on France, prices are quite high, and the by-the-glass service—at least for the wines we drank—is rather weak. Perhaps we did not order an expensive enough wine to be offered the heavy artillery, assuming they have it at all.

BEFORE THE MENU BEGINS

Before the menu service started, since we were in season, we were asked whether we would like to add white Alba truffle (without any mention of the price). I said no because, even though it may be true—as many people claim—that top restaurants in Japan receive the best truffles because they are the ones willing to pay for them, having just flown 14,000 km to eat a product that essentially comes from next door was not the idea I had in mind. I also declined because they were not offering a menu specifically designed around the truffle; they would simply shave white truffle over the dishes we were going to eat anyway. Moreover, I also consider it an overrated product that does not make me particularly happy given its price.

They provide a printed reminder listing the names of the dishes on the menu, along with five additional pages containing other information, such as a diagram of the Japanese landscape titled “Japanese Geography,” in which they place some of the menu’s ingredients within six parts of nature: Forest, Satoyama, Hitosato, River, Lake, and Sea.

I would now like to devote a few lines to explaining Satoyama, since it is a recurring term in Narisawa’s discourse and I find it interesting to understand the traditional Japanese agricultural system. I see it as part of the idiosyncrasy of the Japanese people, because it shares many similarities with the forests and histories of our own country and others around the world, but also because it offers insight into different ways of managing agricultural land—so essential for obtaining good ingredients and, ultimately, good cuisine.

Sometimes translated simply as “forest,” Satoyama more precisely refers to the part of the mountains that lies between the plain or meadow and the summit. Put this way, it might be translated as “hillside” or “the foot of the mountain,” but in reality it refers to the cultivable zone. Japan is surrounded by forests (70% of its territory, compared to 35% in Spain) and seas (with nearly 30,000 km of coastline, it is the 7th country in the world with the longest coastline; Spain has almost 5,000 km). In the limited space that remains, the population cultivates the land and lives in coexistence with nature—this is Satoyama. Literally, sato means “arable land,” “humanized land,” “village,” or “hometown,” and yama means “hill” or “wooded mountain.”

In fact, Satoyama is a very broad concept with multiple definitions and interpretations, which continue to evolve.

First of all, it is important to keep in mind that land use is influenced by political and economic evolution, and more specifically by agricultural policies.

Originally, during much of the Edo period (1603–1867), Satoyama referred strictly to forests located near villages and to the way they were managed at the time. People from villages and hamlets (local agricultural communities) collected fallen leaves to use as fertilizer for wet rice paddies and harvested wood for construction, firewood, cooking, and heating. During some of the early years of the Edo period, the government regulated and managed timber production, which led to the recovery of forests.

Since the Second World War, however, urbanization, agricultural reforms, and market pressures have led to the abandonment and degradation of Satoyama landscapes throughout Japan. Nevertheless, today Satoyama landscapes are recognized as an important component of Japan’s cultural heritage and as environments that can also contribute to biodiversity conservation.

Between 1955 and 1975, Japan’s economic growth created significant social and economic gaps between rural areas and cities, leading to the depopulation of many mountain villages, where life became increasingly difficult. Population decline led to forest abandonment which, combined with the discontinuation of wood as a fuel source and the adoption of chemical fertilizers, meant that forests were no longer cultivated. As a result, forests were cut down for economic reasons such as residential and commercial development and the need for building materials. To such an extent that Satoyama disappeared from the Japanese landscape.

As a consequence of the disappearance of Satoyama, secondary pine forests were created, which have suffered from epidemics since the 1970s. In addition, there is the problem that few people today are capable of working forests according to the intermediate disturbance hypothesis—the idea that certain levels of intervention can actually enhance biodiversity. In this case, by cultivating trees for construction timber and charcoal production.

Land ownership distribution has also played an important role. Since the early 19th century, Satoyama forests located near villages were often communally owned.

In the 1980s and 1990s, a movement to protect Satoyama emerged in Japan. Thanks to this movement, by 2001 there were already more than 500 conservation groups. Furthermore, in 2009, UNESCO launched the Satoyama Initiative to promote a more balanced relationship between people and nature.

More recently, Satoyama has been defined not only as mixed community forests, but as entire landscapes used for agriculture—the whole surrounding environment—namely a mosaic of mixed forests, dry rice fields, wet rice paddies, meadows, streams, ponds, and irrigation reservoirs. In this system, farmers use meadows to feed horses and livestock, while streams, ponds, and reservoirs play an important role in regulating water levels in rice paddies and in fish farming as a food source.

It also conveys a collaborative way of life: people cultivate fields, grow rice, soybeans, straw crops, practice shifting cultivation, maintain bamboo groves, graze animals, and so on. The goal is not to achieve a wild nature abandoned by humans, but rather to advocate for human interaction with nature through different trades and even lifestyles, both of which can be considered part of Satoyama. For this reason, I believe Satoyama should be understood as an ecosystem or a holistic set of interconnected units.

There is also Satoumi, which can be understood as Satoyama applied to coastal areas. More recently still, there has even been talk of an urban Satoyama, extending the concept to cities.

Therefore, as applied to Narisawa’s cuisine, Satoyama evokes nostalgic images of a simpler time when people lived in close harmony with nature. It supports the recovery of rural areas, supplies part of the ingredients served at the restaurant, and symbolizes this harmony between humans and nature. From this coexistence arise two key ideas: environmental sustainability and beneficial gastronomy, linked to healthy eating. It is thus important to understand the multifunctionality of Satoyama: environmental, social, and economic.

Hitosato, which is also mentioned in the diagram provided in the reminder, is a Japanese concept referring to the space inhabited by humans—the place where people live—but with an important nuance: it is not simply “the village,” but rather the zone where human life and nature meet.

In traditional Japanese thought, and especially in Narisawa’s discourse, Hitosato is understood as the transitional zone between wild nature (okuyama, the deep mountains) and a fully humanized environment. It belongs to the same universe as Satoyama (fields, orchards, forests, paths, rivers…). It is a place where nature is not dominated, but lived with. In more poetic terms, Hitosato is the place where nature already knows people’s names, and people still know how to listen to nature.

In gastronomy, speaking of Hitosato means speaking of a cuisine rooted in its territory, attentive to the seasons, made with ingredients that come from this fragile balance between humans and the living world. That is why, at Narisawa, Hitosato is not merely a cultural concept, but a way of understanding what we eat and where it comes from.

As for Narisawa itself, I feel that, beyond simply handing out the reminder, they could briefly explain these two concepts, since I would say that most Western diners have never heard these words before: Satoyama and Hitosato.

THE MENU

Welcome Sake

On the following page of the printed reminder, there is a text under the title “Hiki Sakazuki” (translated from English, with a slightly expanded explanation).

Hiki sakazuki is a cup/plate used to drink sake during the tea ceremony.

The use of this vessel signifies the beginning of an important meal.

The Urushi lacquer applied to the Hiki Sakazuki:

In the 16th century, various urushi-lacquered products were brought to Europe.
Japanese lacquerware is a traditional craft technique used across a wide range of decorative arts, from painting (urushi-e) and printmaking to coating a great variety of objects, from Buddha statues to food containers such as bentō boxes.

In Japanese, several words are used to refer to lacquerware:

• Shikki, which literally means “lacquer items” or “lacquerware.”
• Nurimono, meaning “coated items.”
• Urushi-nuri, meaning “lacquer coating.”

Urushi lacquer is sometimes referred to as “Japan” lacquer.
Urushi is the sap of the lacquer tree, now commonly described as urushiol-based lacquer, an oil (sometimes solid) extracted from certain plants.

At Narisawa, the welcome sake is presented on handmade, unbleached white Japanese paper, with the red lacquer sakazuki placed at the center of the sheet, arranged to resemble the Japanese flag. Altogether, this recreates the beautiful traditional Japanese ceremony used to welcome the most important guests.

The sakazuki is a type of sake cup that resembles a small bowl. It is very shallow, has no stem, and rests on a wide base (foot). It is commonly used in ceremonies such as weddings, New Year celebrations, and coming-of-age rituals. Traditionally, it is made of wood and finished with lacquer. Its capacity is small—just one or two sips. The ritual consists of exchanging sake cups and symbolizes union and commitment.

We were offered a Masuda (Masuizumi) sake from 2022, served from one of those glass teapots that have a compartment for ice so that it does not come into direct contact with the sake.

It was a sake from Toyama Prefecture, from a brewery founded in 1893 called Masuda Shuzō, commercially known as Masuizumi.

It was the first sake of the season. The label read “Ippo Shibori.” Shibori means “to squeeze,” though expressed in a poetic way, since the technical term for pressing sake is jōsō. Ippo could be translated as “a firm step forward.” I found it odd that the label did not specify whether it was shibori-tate or hatsu-shibori, which suggests to me that it was a fairly simple sake.

The fact that it is the first sake of the season does not necessarily mean that it is a shinshu (new sake), since shibori defines the state of the sake (recently pressed), and such sakes can appear throughout the season. Shinshu, on the other hand—which means sake made with the most recently harvested rice—defines a specific moment of the year and the harvest.

It had a clean profile and low aromatic intensity, even by sake standards. On the palate, texture stood out more than flavor. I imagine connoisseurs would speak of “purity of taste”; I would call it insipidity. It struck me as a sake meant to be drunk young, where the appeal lies in freshness and the supposed expressiveness of immediacy.

As for representing the Japanese flag, I do not even want to imagine what would happen if, in Catalonia, someone came up with the idea of doing the same with the senyera—or if someone tried it with the Spanish flag.

From this point on, I transcribe the names of the dishes in bold, exactly as they appear in English on the reminder, and then translate and explain each dish below.

“Bread of the Forest”. Moss.

They serve the dish, explaining that it is the “bread of the forest” and that it is still fermenting inside the small glass vessel, which has a candle underneath, and that the dough is still rising. They tell us that later they will bring a stone bowl, but for now we should not touch it. Therefore, the first dish we actually ate was the next one—the squid.

On the fourth page of the reminder, there is a text under the title “Bread of the Forest 2010” (translated from English, with a slightly expanded explanation):

We are constantly surrounded by an infinite number of microbes that make up this world.

Using wild yeast from the Shirakami Mountains, the bread dough undergoes its final stage of fermentation at the table, right in front of the diners.

By showing the process of fermentation, diners are able to capture the true function of microbes and recognize their existence.

The world we live in is full of these microbes that are invisible to the naked eye.

Aori Squid, Kanagawa.

Two small pieces of squid coated in an extremely fine tempura batter, topped with caviar and a little grated sudachi peel.

Aori-ika is the squid Sepioteuthis lessoniana (known in English as bigfin reef squid), widely used as neta in sushi. These specimens came from Kanagawa Prefecture, just south of Tokyo, and weighed around 800 grams each. It is a squid of pure white, translucent, thick flesh, highly prized due to its limited availability and its exceptional “sweet” flavor compared to other Japanese squids such as sumi-ika, yari-ika, and hotaru-ika, which are the ones I have most often seen in markets and restaurants.

The large conical or oval fin that covers its mantle resembles an aori—a saddle flap placed over horses to act as a kind of mudguard—hence the name. And since it often flaps its fins like a fan, it is also known as fin squid.

The caviar came from Qiandao Lake (also known as Thousand Island Lake) in China, an artificial freshwater lake located in Chun’an County, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, in eastern China. It was created after the completion of the Xin’an River hydroelectric dam in 1959. Thanks to the calmness of its waters, the lake can support sturgeon populations—reportedly around 30,000 specimens of a species native to Russia and Central Asia—raised to produce caviar for the Kaluga Queen brand, which appears to belong to Hangzhou Thousand Island Lake Sturgeon Technology Co., Ltd., a Chinese company founded in 2003, although its contact information is listed in Serbia. The stillness of the water allows the sturgeon to avoid swimming against strong currents and consequently to accumulate more fat, which results in more flavorful roe.

Sudachi is a green-skinned citrus fruit, smaller than yuzu.

The dish was served on a round wooden plate, atop a beautiful sheet of paper with raised fibers and pronounced texture.

A dish meant to be eaten in two bites, exactly as it is served.
Served warm.
Although delicate, the dominant aroma was citrus.
The squid was lightly cooked, very tender and warm inside, very gentle on the palate.
It had very little fried flavor.

What was most surprising was the cut of the squid, though in the end it is still a refined version of calamari alla romana. And this is where we should ask ourselves why we perceive it as “refined”: because it is not greasy, because it is tempura rather than flour, because it is topped with caviar, because it is Japanese rather than Western? With this question and observation, I would like us to become aware of our food prejudices and of the existing gastronomic hierarchy (with France and Japan at the very top). I also want to highlight the following: how “normal” and “appropriate” we find this appetizer in Japan, and yet I wonder how we would react if we were served a fried calamari ring as an appetizer in a restaurant of this price point, characteristics, and ranking position—even if it were perfectly executed, made with line-caught squid, and topped with caviar, which would be even more debatable.

That said, it seems unusual to me to begin a fine dining menu with a fried dish. We do encounter crunchy appetizers, but beyond the occasional croquette, I cannot readily think of menus that open with a fried course.

Now they continue with the explanation and service of the first dish, the “Bread of the Forest.”

They bring us a side table with the stone bowl they had mentioned at the beginning of the meal. They tell us it is very hot and add a little olive oil. Given my surprise and lack of knowledge about Japanese olive oil production, I asked whether it was Japanese. After checking with several people, they told me it was olive oil from southern Australia, without being able to specify its origin or the variety.

As they transfer the dough from the glass vessel—where it has been since it was first presented before the squid—into the hot stone bowl, they explain that they use a native yeast from Mount Shirakami, or Shirakami Sanchi, which, as far as I know, is a mountain range between Akita and Aomori Prefectures, in the north of the island of Honshū. Literally translated as “Mountains of the White God,” it is a primeval forest covering 130,000 hectares, part of which has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1993.

For the filling, they use seasonal ingredients: in autumn, citrus fruits (not specified) from Shizuoka Prefecture, just south of Tokyo; in spring, cherry blossoms; and in summer, mugwort, which I believe is a type of Artemisia.

Finally, the bread is served at our table in individual portions within the stone bowl, and at the very end they sprinkle it with chestnut powder—not made from the chestnut itself, but from dried chestnut tree bark.

They cover the bowl with a wooden lid and explain that what they want to convey with this dish is the feeling of being in the forest. They tell us not to touch it yet, that it will be ready in 15 minutes, and that they will let us know. Around the fermenting dough, they place a wreath of bay leaves, which looked very much like one of those decorative wreaths hung on doors at Christmas, and which, they say, represents the season of the year in which we find ourselves.

Hairy crab. Salmon roe. Sea urchin, Hokkaido. Rice, Kyoto.

They present the dish by naming the three marine ingredients it contains: hairy crab (kegani), salmon roe (ikura), and sea urchin (uni), specifying that all three come from Hokkaidō.

I asked whether they purchase whole salmon or directly the egg sacs (since I assumed they were not buying pasteurized salmon roe in glass jars), and that is indeed the case: they receive the sacs of roe from each salmon and then separate the eggs, marinating them in soy sauce (and surely something else they do not disclose).

When I speak of egg sacs, I mean this: these are salmon roe that Nil Dulcet kindly showed me at Compartir in Barcelona.

At the base of the dish is organic Koshihikari rice from Kyoto, cooked in a dashi made from kombu, katsuo, and maguro.

The small purple flower was shiso blossom (hanaho shiso), which, apparently, is not seasonal and is available year-round. How a plant can flower constantly, I do not know—perhaps there was a misunderstanding, or perhaps it is cultivated.

Served with a dessert spoon.

There was a citrus aroma.

The bowl was hot, and so was all the food except for the sea urchin, which was cool. I value the care taken with serving temperature very positively; I find it demonstrates that someone has actually eaten the dish, respects the ingredients, and has considered the flavor of each component. In this case, it was very well judged.

The dish was very creamy, somewhat reminiscent of a risotto; it almost seemed to contain a touch of butter, even though this was not mentioned and no butter flavor was detectable. Overall, it had little shellfish flavor, and even less crab in particular, though the salmon roe and sea urchin were clearly present. The sea urchin was gently sweet and low in iodine, as I have found Japanese sea urchin to be—at least in autumn.

There were pieces of mushroom that looked like shiitake, which they confirmed, from Gunma Prefecture (northwest of Tokyo). There was also a green vegetable sliced so finely that it looked like sprouts; I do not know whether it was the stem of some onion, but it was extremely delicate in both flavor and texture.

A dish built around three seasonal products—above all, the crab, salmon roe, and sea urchin. Three ingredients that could be very powerful, but which were treated in such a way as to soften them and make them more homogeneous and integrated with one another. As a whole, this can work, but when I think about each ingredient individually, it does not strike me as the best way to showcase the product.

Second dish served, second dish of familiar and comforting flavors.

Now yes—finally—we were able to eat the “Bread of the Forest.”

They come to uncover the bowl; we joke that it is the freshest bread we have ever eaten. They warn us that it is very hot and tell us that if we want more, they will bring additional bread directly from the kitchen—that is, they will not repeat the entire show.

At no point did they specify the type of flour used, but I assume it was wheat flour.

As for the ingredients, at first glance neither wheat flour, olive oil, nor bay leaves make me think of traditional Japanese products, even though wheat was introduced to Japan from China—especially from the 6th to the 8th centuries—along with Buddhism, and even though olive trees have been cultivated on Shōdoshima (an island belonging to Kagawa Prefecture, located in the Seto Inland Sea) for more than 100 years.

I would like to know to what extent—despite being a fermented product, an area in which the East (and especially Japan) often seems to claim exclusivity—this bread dish can truly be considered Japanese. It is true that they place special emphasis on the fermentation process and on nature, but both seem to me to be universal concepts rather than uniquely Japanese. At most, I would understand it as a version of fu (wheat gluten, seitan); but if that were the case, I would also find it not particularly well achieved.

In fact, fermentation is a subject that Narisawa mentions in the documentary “Michelin Stars: Tales From the Kitchen.” He says that “if we take what is special about Japanese gastronomic culture and observe how it differs from Western gastronomic culture, the greatest difference is probably its tradition of fermentation. Soybeans, miso, sake, and vinegar—everything is based on the fermentation of rice, and he believes this is what makes Japanese food special.”

This is not the first time I have heard this statement, which is why I want to comment on it here, opening a parenthesis within the menu narrative. I find that this assertion oversimplifies Japanese gastronomic culture and attributes its uniqueness almost exclusively to fermentation.

First of all, fermentation is neither exclusive to Japan nor more present there than in Western gastronomic culture. In the West, we also find a long and equally fundamental tradition of fermentation: bread, cheese, wine, beer, yogurt, vinegar… Therefore, I do not think it can be claimed that the major difference lies in fermentation, since both cultures share it as a central pillar.

Secondly, not all of the products mentioned are based on the fermentation of rice. Miso and soy sauce are primarily fermented from soybeans (with the help of koji), and Japanese vinegar can be made from rice, but also from other bases. Moreover, koji (the fungus Aspergillus oryzae) is essential, and the role of the microorganism is just as important as that of the grain—something the statement overlooks.

Finally, I believe that what truly makes Japanese cuisine special goes far beyond fermentation: the emphasis on umami, respect for seasonal ingredients, the simplicity and purity of preparations, aesthetics and presentation, the use of dashi as a foundation, and the precision and technique in cutting and cooking.

Therefore, fermentation is important in Japanese gastronomy, but it is neither the greatest difference compared to Western culture nor the sole defining element. To attribute its specificity only to this factor seems to me a reductionist view.

Returning to the “Bread of the Forest,” in terms of service, I would have appreciated being told whether I was meant to eat all the bread at that moment because it was considered a “dish,” or whether it was intended to accompany the entire meal and there was no need to rush through it.

This is one of Narisawa’s most famous “dishes.” I would say it dates back to 2010—we were not told, but I think this could be one of the details they might mention during the explanation.

At this point, I find myself wondering whether what we witnessed should be considered a show and storytelling of Japan, or whether, when show and storytelling take place in Japan, they are instead called ceremony. I was about to define the whole explanation as a show, but given that this is a restaurant in Tokyo, I hesitate, and I am not sure whether, in more Japanese terms, I should speak of ceremony or ritual.

Personally, I use the words show and storytelling when I want to emphasize that something feels artificial, not very credible, or disconnected from its environment and context. On the other hand, I use the words ceremony or ritual when it truly feels like a process carried out with respect and when I perceive genuine sensitivity.

The fact is that the bread smelled like donuts—the classic glazed ones—which is curious, considering it contained no sugar and was not fried. It tasted of citrus and had a terrible texture, like undercooked bread; it stuck to the teeth and felt very much like a panettone made with bun dough. Thankfully, the citrus helped to slightly “lighten” the gummy heaviness of the bread.

Perhaps I am being harsher than this poor bread deserves, but I found nothing special in this famous dish. Maybe I should say that, in general, I prefer crispy doughs to “raw” ones—but I also love fluffy doughs, and this bread was not that either. I regret it, because perhaps I am simply unable to appreciate the greatness of this dish, but it struck me as a botched effort. And I do not think it was a matter of atmospheric conditions that day—higher humidity, for instance—causing the dough not to turn out properly.

They serve the small “bun” with a ball of “moss butter” per person—a moss butter—since they “coat” a small ball of fermented, salted Hokkaido butter with powdered spinach and dehydrated black olive powder. On top, there are Japanese wild herbs, whose names were not mentioned to us at the table, but which appeared on the map in the printed reminder: obatanetsukebana (Cardamine regeliana or Cardamine scutata) and hakobe (Stellaria media), an herb found on Mount Hakobe, also known as hakobera or chickweed in English. It is considered a weed because it grows quickly and spontaneously, has a high reproductive capacity, and spreads easily. In Catalan, I believe it is known as borrissol or herba gallinera.

The butter did not seem either fermented or particularly salted; it had a mild flavor and I did not find it intense at all, nor more acidic, which I would expect from churning fermented cream.

The act of serving the “Bread of the Forest” and letting it ferment on the table—almost without the diner noticing—made me think of the candle that Tom Sellers used to serve at Story in London (during my visit in April 2015): a candle placed on the diner’s table without explanation, appearing to be just a candle. It would slowly melt, and once fully melted, guests were invited to dip bread into it, at which point they explained that it was actually beef dripping. A dish that became very famous, “Bread and dripping,” and which Davide Oldani later adapted using olive oil with his “Candela al rosmarino”—a candle made from extra virgin olive oil from Puglia, beeswax, and rosemary.

It also reminded me of a vegetable cheese that Andreu Genestra prepared à la minute for one of the appetizers on his 2020 menu, in which almond milk and fig leaf milk were curdled in front of the diner (during my visit in August 2020).

They do not allow you to taste either the bread or the butter yet, and while they finish all the explanations about the bread and butter (another two minutes), they serve the next dish: the onion soup with scallop.

Scallop, Hokkaido.

A scallop from Hokkaidō with a creamy Kyoto onion soup. On top, a reduction of roasted onion.

Just by looking at the dish, the onion cappuccino immediately felt very Robuchon and very Alain Chapel to me.

Served hot.
It smelled of onion.

What a magnificent scallop! Full of flavor and lightly cooked inside, tender texture, extremely delicate.

The soup was very creamy, excellent, with crunchy pieces of onion.

I asked about the type of onion used, but they told me that it was “nothing specific—just a white onion with brown skin.”

Fourth dish served, fourth dish of familiar and comforting flavors.

Eel, Aichi – Manganji Green Pepper, Kyoto.

Freshwater unagi from Aichi Prefecture, located southwest of Tokyo, between Mikawa Bay and Ise Bay—the region where Narisawa was born and an area well known for the quality of its eels. It was accompanied by manganji (Capsicum annuum), a long, conical green pepper about 10 cm in length, considered traditional to Kyoto.

The yellow sauce was made from mango and passion fruit from the Japanese island of Amami Ōshima (one of the Satsunan Islands, between Kyūshū and Okinawa, toward Taiwan, in the East China Sea, with a humid subtropical climate). There were sanshō peppercorns, ground sanshō, and sanshō leaves—a very traditional combination with eel.

First of all, it is worth noting that this was unagi (freshwater eel) and not anago (saltwater eel).

It had a citrus aroma.

The eel was served with the skin on—crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, hot, juicy, and very good.

The pepper was a fine sweet green pepper (not spicy), well cooked. I liked that it was served with the stem still attached (it often seems that in fine dining everything must be discarded except the “best” part of the ingredient), but I did not find anything particularly special about it—especially when compared to peppers such as those from Tabernilla by Ignacio Solana, or similar varieties prepared equally well. With the green background of the plate, it played a secondary role, never overshadowing the eel.

The sanshō was aromatic and perfumed, with hints reminiscent of wasabi and ginger. As this was our first meal in Tokyo, it seemed to me the best sanshō I had ever tasted—so fresh and aromatic that it made the mouth tingle. Later, the sanshō I ate day after day also seemed fantastic.

There was only a small amount of the mango and passion fruit sauce—just enough, perfect so that it did not take center stage. Simply looking at the map of its origin and discovering those islands already made me happy.

This was the first dish that, despite having gentle flavors, did not fit so neatly into the familiar registers of European fine dining (understanding the simplification).

I still had the lingering taste of sanshō—my lips still tingling—when they brought the next dish: the langoustine.

“Luxury Essence”. Langoustine, Kanagawa.

A langoustine from Odawara (in Sagami Bay, Kanagawa Prefecture, just southwest of Tokyo Bay). They emphasized that it was very fresh and, jokingly, said it had been caught 30 minutes earlier, which is why they cooked it very briefly over steam.

They say the broth is a “luxury essence,” made from meat: a whole chicken, pork, and a Chinese ham (Jinhua ham?), all steamed together for six hours.

As a garnish, small cubes of yellow and green zucchini.

They provide a separate small plate for the langoustine shell.

It smelled strongly of langoustine, but it was different from the ones we know from the Mediterranean. Morphologically, the claws were thinner and narrower—not as robust or meaty as ours. In terms of flavor, it lacked the spark that truly exceptional products have.

Wow—what density in the broth! It was almost gelatinous, slightly cloudy, resembling collagen from chicken feet.

The dish was awkward to eat: the cubes of pepper (they later turned out to be yellow pepper, not zucchini as announced) together with the langoustine, shell and all…

The most extraordinary element of the dish was the broth.

Ultimately, it was a surf and turf.

Sixth dish served, fifth dish with familiar and comforting flavors.

“Rich Harvest”. Tilefish, Yamaguchi.

They bring a deep plate covered with a sheet of washi paper (or vegetable paper) with beautiful textured fibers, topped with dried rice stalks. When they uncover it, a little smoke escapes.

They title the dish “Rich Harvest,” which I understand as a reference specifically to the rice harvest and as a tribute to it. According to their explanation, it represents the rice-growing season, with elements of the grain in different states (koji, puffed rice, rice vinegar, etc.), highlighting its versatility despite being a humble ingredient.

The fish is presented in English as “tilefish,” sourced from Yamaguchi Prefecture, located in the south of the island of Honshū, directly opposite southern South Korea, bordered by the Sea of Japan and the Seto Inland Sea (around Yamaguchi Bay). In Japanese, the fish is called amadai (Branchiostegus japonicus), a red-skinned fish with a characteristic square head. It belongs to the Malacanthidae family, even though it is very often mistranslated as “sea bream” or “sweet sea bream” (which would refer to Sparidae, such as red bream). This taxonomic confusion arises because ama in Japanese means “sweet,” and tai (which becomes dai) is translated into English as “sea bream.”

It is one of the most highly valued white-fleshed fish in Japan, especially among top kaiseki chefs in Kyoto. Specimens usually weigh between 500 and 800 grams, and the season runs from October to March, becoming fattier and more prized toward December.

At the base of the dish, there were two sauces or purées—one green and one pinkish-red—which I understood to be made from daikon with citrus and ponzu sauce.

Around the perimeter of the plate, two spirals or swirls made from a green sauce and a pinkish-red sauce, both made from fermented rice koji.

There were also puffed rice grains: some red, enhanced with pickled plum and red shiso; others white, with touches of green shiso and white miso.

The fifth page of the reminder is dedicated to this dish and explains the following (translated from English, with a slightly expanded explanation):

“Gokoku Hōjō (Rich Harvest)” is a Japanese expression (a sacred term used in Shintoism) expressing gratitude and a wish for an abundant harvest of the gokoku, the five main crops of Japan: mugi (a term that encompasses wheat, barley, rye, and oats), kome (rice), mame (soybeans), and awa and kibi (two varieties of millet). Even so, the expression refers especially to rice, which is essential to the Japanese people and to blessings from nature. Some say that its true meaning is “longevity,” but the idea is to understand that these crops are crucial both nutritionally and in cultural and religious symbolism (Shintoism).

Rice is not only cooked and eaten as it is, but is also used to make sake and soy-based products such as soy sauce, mirin, miso, and other fundamental elements of Japanese food culture.

In Japan, where there is little flat land, rice terraces are often found on hillside slopes, with runoff flowing down from the terraced paddies. The foothills lead directly to the sea.

The seafood caught there is wrapped in the aroma of burnt straw, reminiscent of the morning mist over terraced rice fields. The smoke rising into the air evokes a nostalgic Japanese landscape.

The tilefish had a fibrous texture; it reminded me of a kind of pandora seabream with the texture of cod. The whole portion of the fish we were served weighed around 500–600 grams, and they did not explain how it was cooked—whether it had been smoked over binchōtan charcoal and wrapped in straw as the text suggested, or previously cooked at low temperature, or seared on a griddle. It did not seem grilled; rather, it felt as though smoke had simply been added under the service cloche at the last moment.

Fortunately, once you leaned in past the smoke aroma, it smelled like fish.

The puffed rice was soaked.

As for the sauces, I did not notice any difference in flavor between the green and the red daikon—assuming they were daikon at all, which I also find doubtful.

One of Narisawa’s signature dishes, and another dish that I did not find particularly remarkable.

Wagyu beef, Miyazaki.

They present it as the main course and inform us that desserts will follow next, asking whether we would like coffee and/or tea. I had never been asked this question so early in a meal.

It was a cut of wagyu beef from Miyazaki Prefecture (on the island of Kyūshū), accompanied by a piece of maitake (Grifola frondosa, hen-of-the-woods) and a red wine sauce.

It was served with a knife from Takamura, a family-run manufacturer founded in 1910 and based in Echizen (Fukui Prefecture, in the central part of Honshū, on the Sea of Japan side), engraved with the restaurant’s logo—the honeybee. This does not mean that Narisawa refers to a bee, but rather symbolizes the importance of bees in nature.

The meat was extremely tender and smooth, and not particularly fatty.

They did not specify whether the wagyu had been cooked over binchōtan charcoal, but it seemed so, even if the smokiness was barely perceptible; it was very well cooked and delicate. They also did not specify which cut of wagyu it was, but it looked like filet mignon.

I asked whether the maitake was cultivated or wild, as I found it very good (it seemed almost fried), and since at home I often buy cultivated maitake from El Bolet Ben Fet in Sant Antoni de Vilamajor. If I understood correctly, they told me that although it was in season, it was cultivated.

Thankfully, they did not bring out one of those granitas meant to “cleanse” the palate.

DESSERTS

Dark Brown Sugar, Kagoshima – Uji Matcha, Kyoto.

Two pieces of warabimochi with Uji matcha, and alongside them, a quenelle of milk ice cream.

Warabimochi is a variety of mochi that is more transparent and gelatinous than the more common type. It is made with starch, sugar, and water. In this case, the starch was extracted from warabi root, a plant from the fern family (more commercial versions are usually made with potato starch or other cheaper starches), and the sugar was dark brown sugar (therefore containing about 6.5% molasses, as opposed to light brown sugar, which contains around 3.5% molasses). The sugar came from Kikaijima (an island in Kagoshima Prefecture, in southwest Japan), where sugar production is a significant industry and where dark brown sugar has a characteristically even darker hue.

Warabimochi is traditionally dusted with kinako (a yellow flour made from roasted soybeans), but in this case it was “floured” with matcha tea from the city of Uji (Kyoto)—an important center of high-quality green tea production and distribution since the shōgun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358–1408) promoted Uji tea cultivation in the area.

I assume it was cane sugar, as sugarcane cultivation and brown sugar production in Japan were first recorded on the island about 400 years ago, using techniques developed in Fujian Province (China) and later spread throughout the Japanese archipelago. Although the most famous dark brown sugar from Kagoshima comes from Amami Ōshima, the sugar served at Narisawa came from Kikaijima, another smaller island with a humid subtropical climate, located halfway between Okinawa and Kyūshū, bordered by the East China Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

Overall, the dish smelled of matcha tea.

The warabimochi had its characteristic elastic, silky texture and was lighter than standard mochi. The powdered Uji matcha added smoothness and struck me as very aromatic, extraordinarily fresh, and more nuanced than many oxidized matcha teas served in Barcelona.

The ice cream had a strong fatty, dairy flavor—very good and house-made.

It was served in a bowl with traditional black Japanese lacquer, glossy and beautifully contrasting with the green and white tones of the dessert.

Melon, Shizuoka.

A melon foam, which they explained as “a carbonated melon juice with soda.” After confirming that it was a siphon foam, they told me yes—“chef Ferran.”

At the base, pieces of fresh melon from Shizuoka Prefecture (in the Chūbu region, on the island of Honshū).

On the side, a house-made vanilla ice cream and irregular cubes of cherry jelly.

On top, drops of an herbal oil that I did not fully understand.

Served in a double-walled glass bowl, very common in the West and one we have eaten from many times before—possibly from an Asian manufacturer.

If I understood correctly, the dessert is inspired by a popular drink, a kind of creamy milk shake with soda sold in supermarkets.

A refreshing dessert. The quality of the fruit was evident in the melon pieces—very delicate and perfectly ripe. Beyond that, however, I did not find much to it.

Tea was served in a Kinto glass, as in so many restaurants across Europe.

THE PETIT FOUR

Lemon, Hiroshima – Honey, Fukuoka – Monaka, Koyama.

A filled monaka.

Monaka is a traditional wagashi, a sweet made from a type of rice wafer or shell. In this case, it was filled in a modern—that is, Western—style with lemon cream and honey cream. The lemons came from Hiroshima (in the Chūgoku region, western Japan), an area well known for its lemon groves; the honey came from Fukuoka (at the northern tip of Kyūshū).

Meant to be eaten with the hands.

Fans of anti–petit fours would have been pleased, as they served only one rather sad petit four. Years ago, I believe they used to offer a selection of petit fours from a trolley.

A Westernized wagashi.

The two “wafers” tasted like airy, puffed ice-cream cones and stuck to the teeth.

A petit four that did not make me particularly happy.

Overall, I found the level of the desserts rather weak, with the warabimochi standing out as the highlight. It should also be said that, fortunately, they did not serve the selection of macarons they had offered in other years, which I would have found particularly inappropriate in Japan.

THE STYLE OF CUISINE

As I have already explained, at the core of Narisawa’s discourse lies Satoyama: a commitment to territory, environment, nature, product, surroundings, and sustainability. He is widely regarded as a pioneer of farm-to-table thinking in Japan. In fact, he says that he understands nature through five elements—soil, water, fire, charcoal, and forest—and that this understanding has led him to create dishes that engage with environmental concerns.

He is often referred to as “the chef of the forest,” which immediately brings to mind “The Chef of the Sea” (Ángel León) and Norbert Niederkofler’s 2008 slogan “Cook the Mountain.”

As a diner, I encountered very good local products; however, although there is a clear exploration of Japanese roots, I would describe his cuisine more as an evolved Japanese tradition, adapted to the tastes of Michelin and The World’s 50 Best. Moreover, after all the Satoyama discourse, you arrive and the first thing you see are wine fridges in the middle of the dining room filled with Dom Pérignon.

As he preaches, almost all the ingredients on the menu were Japanese—except for the white truffle, which we did not eat; the caviar, which in Asia still seems to function as a quota item for inclusion in the 50 Best; the olive oil, which came from Australia; the hairy crab from Shanghai, which he also serves; and most of the wines, which were French.

As a recurring inconsistency, after all the Satoyama and localism discourse, he serves caviar, an ingredient that is not part of the traditional washoku repertoire and does not symbolize classic luxury in Japan, but rather cultural exchange and modernity. I was also surprised that he did not serve Japanese caviar, given that it exists—at least from the Shimane Mountains (which Shinobu Namae offers at L’Effervescence) and from Miyazaki, such as the well-known Miyazaki Caviar 1983.

In the menu we ate, seafood and vegetables predominated, with two fish dishes and one beef dish.

They make a point of using only organic ingredients and of not using any chemical ingredients, and I have seen him repeatedly state that “most vegetables and fruits in Japan contain pesticides, and therefore the role of the chef is to support organic producers.” When they say they do not use chemical ingredients, I am never quite sure what they mean. Do they mean they do not use additives? Because Narisawa does use soy lecithin in his famous dish “Soil Soup” and liquid nitrogen in “Ash 2009,” for example. Lecithins are additive E322 and nitrogen is additive E941, and even if their toxicity is considered low, they are still additives. Perhaps when they say they do not use chemical ingredients, they mean they do not use artificial foods or synthetic-origin ingredients.

He also repeatedly states that he has spent 20 years in contact with fishermen, farmers, and producers of all kinds, and that he maintains an ongoing dialogue with them.

In summary, what I perceived is that his style is based on a mix of four or five pillars:

• a naturalist current, without going as far as having his own garden or being self-sufficient, but with foraging and local product central to the discourse;
• Japanese essence, the spirit of the Land of the Rising Sun;
• academicism, understood as everything he learned during his eight years of European training—largely rooted in Nouvelle Cuisine, with Bocuse, Girardet, and Robuchon;
• and the influence of Bullinian cuisine, which I see more or less present over the years.

Regarding the naturalist current, I would draw distinctions between the West and Japan, setting aside other Asian cuisines that I know even less well.

I would place the origin of Western gastronomic naturalism at the end of the 20th century, particularly between the 1970s and 1980s, although it did not fully consolidate until the 2000s.

In an initial phase, I would associate it with Nouvelle Cuisine, which rejected heavy sauces and championed product, lightness, and proximity to nature. Later, already in the 21st century, naturalism took on a more ideological dimension, with movements such as Slow Food, local and seasonal cuisine, sustainability, traceability, and, in some cases, eco, biodynamic, and fermentation-driven cooking (Noma & co.).

Unlike the West, in Japan I would not speak of a clear “birth” of gastronomic naturalism, because I do not think it appears as a modern rupture, but rather as a very old cultural continuity.

It is likely that the naturalist relationship with Japanese food dates back centuries. On the one hand, to kaiseki cuisine (16th–17th centuries), linked to Zen and respect for product, seasonality, and simplicity. On the other, to the Shinto and agricultural worldview of Satoyama, which integrates nature, cultivation, and community.

What does emerge consciously and discursively is a contemporary reinterpretation of this naturalism at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century, with chefs such as Seiji Yamamoto (1970) of RyuGin (Tokyo), Tetsuya Wakuda (1959)—who, after pioneering avant-garde cuisine in Australia with Tetsuya’s (Sydney), opened Waku Ghin (Singapore)—Zaiyu Hasegawa (1982) of Den (Tokyo), and Narisawa. All of them use a scientific, ecological, and global language to express, in international terms, values that already existed in Japanese culture.

Thus, while the origins of Western gastronomic naturalism can be traced to the 1970s–80s and its consolidation to the 2000s, in Japan it seems to me more deeply rooted in ancient traditions rather than appearing as a modern rupture.

As for its roots, in the West they appear more ideological (environmentalism, Slow Food, criticism of industrialization), while in Japan they appear more cultural (Shintoism, Buddhism, traditional agriculture—Satoyama).

Western gastronomic naturalism understands the relationship with nature as an ethical and political issue, centered on sustainability, local and seasonal produce, with techniques that are often visible and innovative, and with an explicit, sometimes activist discourse, as seen in chefs such as Alice Waters, Dan Barber of Blue Hill, or Andoni Luis Aduriz of Mugaritz. In this context, nature is something that must be recovered and protected. By contrast, Japanese gastronomic naturalism is based on a continuous coexistence with nature, with deep respect for minimally transformed products, highly sophisticated yet discreet technique, and an implicit and symbolic discourse, characteristic of kaiseki cuisine, rural Japanese cooking, or chefs like Narisawa and the others mentioned—where nature does not need to be recovered, because it has always been part of the culture.

HOW NARISAWA’S CUISINE IS DESCRIBED VS. HOW I SEE IT

Some people define his cuisine as “Euro-Asian haute cuisine,” which strikes me as an extremely reductive label. I understand that, for them, “Europe” probably boils down to Nouvelle Cuisine (and we should be grateful if they even include Bullinian cuisine); as for the “Asian” part, they likely mean Japan, although perhaps they also take into account that Japanese cuisine draws from Chinese cooking and has long been in contact with Korean cuisine, and that is why they call it Asian.

Others define Narisawa’s cuisine as Franco-Japanese, and from our perspective—being very conscious of our own culinary heritage—we find that this overlooks the influence he has received from Bullinian cuisine. It must also be said that being influenced by a restaurant from a particular country does not automatically mean that you cook the cuisine of that country. In other words, being influenced by Noma does not immediately turn your style into Danish cuisine; likewise, the fact that Narisawa was influenced by El Bulli does not make his restaurant Franco-Japanese-Catalan.

Returning to the documentary “Michelin Stars: Tales from the Kitchen,” Yoshiki Tsuji, director of the Tsuji Culinary Institute (Osaka), also appears, describing Narisawa’s cuisine. Below, I contrast what he says with my own impressions.

He says that Narisawa’s cuisine “is extremely simple, but very difficult for people to understand.”

• I find that the director tends to mythologize it and place it on an almost inaccessible plane. To me, Narisawa’s dishes are immediately readable on a sensory level; if anything is complex, it is the conceptual discourse surrounding them, but that does not mean that the dish itself, as an experience, is incomprehensible.

He says that “his technique is not shown on the plate, but rather in the staging, in a very complex way.”

• Apart from finding this comment rather absurd, the staging struck me as a narrative complement, not the place where the technique actually resides.

He says that “he is a chef capable of embracing Japan in a different way, not only by protecting farmers and fishermen, but also the spirit of the Japanese way of life.”

• For me, the idea that Narisawa “embraces Japan” by protecting farmers, fishermen, and the spirit of the Japanese people is partly true, but it also idealizes his proposal. I do not find that Narisawa’s cuisine represents traditional or popular cooking; rather, it is a contemporary, elitist, and globalized reinterpretation of Japan. His work engages as much with science, international haute cuisine, and global ecological thinking as it does with Japanese tradition. Therefore, I would not say that he “embraces Japan,” but rather that he constructs a personal, modern vision of Japan.

He says that his training is entirely French cuisine and that “there is no one in Japan who cooks French cuisine better than him, although he has distanced himself from it.” He also says that “he does not emphasize whether he cooks Japanese, French, or Chinese cuisine; he uses all of these techniques, and you will not find another chef in the world who can use them as effortlessly as a magician.”

• Well then—what else is he supposed to say? This reminds me of when I asked Frédéric Anton whether he considered that there were Robuchonian touches in his cooking, and he replied: “pas de Robuchon.”

Continuing with style, I missed the famous Japanese minimalism, which could perhaps be found sporadically in the tempura squid with caviar or in the wagyu with maitake and sauce; but I would certainly not define Narisawa’s style as minimalist.

I looked up the menu they offered in spring to compare it with ours in November, and it seemed to be essentially the same menu, the same dishes, and in some cases simply adaptations to seasonal products: the squid tempura, the bread, the hairy crab served with spaghetti instead of rice, the torigai (a bivalve) which we did not eat and which was the only truly different dish, the eel (unagi), the “Luxury Essence” made with shark fin instead of langoustine, the “Rich Harvest” made with Spanish mackerel instead of amadai (tilefish), and the wagyu. For dessert, the Shizuoka melon, which we also had.

In principle, I should not compare it with other moments in his own trajectory because it was my first visit, nor can I compare it with other two-star restaurants in Tokyo or Japan, since I have not been to any others with that distinction. However, given that the internet exists and that from a distance one can see and learn many things, I do have the impression that this is not a restaurant that has evolved significantly in recent years, but rather one that, in addition to maintaining certain dishes on the menu, has largely maintained its style—at least for the last 15 years.

Judging by the photos I had seen of his dishes over the past 15 years, it seemed to me that there were fewer evocative naturalistic presentations, reflecting less the aesthetics of nature, leaving that type of presentation almost exclusively for the famous bread. And I do not think this is a bad choice, since this way of plating has been adapted to the discourse of restaurants all over the planet, from the Amazon rainforest to the volcanic landscapes of Olot, passing through Slovenia’s Soča Valley and the summer herbs of the Faroe Islands.

Below, I describe FOUR ICONIC NARISAWA DISHES that precisely feature this “evocative naturalistic” presentation or convey this idea of terroir, and which are not part of the current menu I have already described:

• “Soil Soup” or “Terre / Richard’s Soil” (2009), a dish made with only three elements: soil, burdock root (gobō in Japanese, Arctium lappa), and water, covered with fine sand. In this way, he extracted the fragrance of the earth to make a soup that aimed to express the sensation of minerals in the soil. It was drunk from a glass. He says it was the first dish he created to communicate to the diner the idea that, for him, the product is almost everything, both in cooking and in eating.
• “Spring Garden” (at least from 2013), a dish featuring tempura oysters, slices of raw fish, green asparagus, and tomatoes, all covered with flower petals.
• “Ash 2009. Scene of the Seashore,” grilled squid accompanied by a frozen powder of olive oil, lemon juice, and paprika, simulating ash. The dish was served using liquid nitrogen.
• “Satoyama Landscape” or “Satoyama Scenery,” a dish recreating a scene reminiscent of Satoyama landscapes, inspired by earth, moss, and branches—a fully edible landscape. To create it, they extracted essences from cedar, oak, and cypress by shaving the wood with a kanna (a Japanese carpenter’s plane) and soaking the shavings in mineral water for 30 minutes. The dish also included soy milk yogurt, tempeh, wild herbs, moss made from chlorophyll, fried tofu, and powders of shiso and green tea. It was plated on a carved wooden dish. The idea was to reflect the respect that Japanese culture has cultivated for Satoyama and to express the landscape. A dish intended to symbolize Narisawa’s ethical philosophy.

I have explained these four emblematic Narisawa dishes to make clearer what I mean when I say that this Satoyama discourse and this way of bringing landscape and nature to the table can fit anywhere in the world, and that we have been seeing it everywhere for years.

To give examples closer to home from recent years, I will mention dishes of this style from five well-known restaurants, trying to follow a chronological order:

• The soil distillate at El Celler de Can Roca (which, if I am not mistaken, I first ate in 2005 with the oyster), which captured volatile aromas through low-temperature distillation using the Rotaval, developed together with the Alícia Foundation.
• The forest floor at El Bulli: “Burnt Earth” (2007) and “Autumn Landscape” (2008) immediately come to mind—two desserts that were later copied all over the world, from impersonal fine-dining restaurants such as Mikla in Istanbul to many of the small restaurants in Barcelona’s Eixample from the new generation of chefs, often grouped under the label “bistronomic” to give them cachet and importance.
• The forest floor at Can Jubany (February 2015): a small box made with a chocolate-and-butter crumble simulating soil, in which the diner, using a small dagger, had to search for truffles—which in this case were chocolate truffles. I believe there were also green Bullinian sponges representing moss or forest chlorophyll. If you think about it, green makes little sense in a truffle ground, since truffles “burn” the soil, creating vegetation-free areas around the tree. Perhaps it was meant to represent the few plants that resist the burn…

The forest floor of Ca l’Enric

A dish titled “The Forest Floor of the Vall de Bianya,” which represented grazing cows, spring mushrooms, tree leaves, and that forest smell that brings back so many memories for all of us. I believe it was a steak tartare from spring 2018.

Also from the Roca brothers, two dishes such as “Petrichor” (2019)—a dessert featuring soil distillate, pine-syrup ice cream, carob biscuit, fir powder, and a cocoa “tile,” aiming to convey petrichor, the smell produced when rain falls on dry ground; and “Rainy Forest” (2021), another dessert built around trumpet-of-death mushroom ice cream, a wet-soil distillate, sweet beetroot, trumpet-of-death crumble, pine pollen, and cocoa leaves.

The “forest floor” distillate from Disfrutar – La Destilateca (2023), called “The distillate that wanted to be wine,” intended as a tribute to two elements they consider essential: water and earth, since without them, they said, we could not obtain many things—one of them being the menu itself. It was that dish where you toast using thick, heavy, gold-colored metal cups. They produced the distillate in-house from a “forest floor” involving water, soil, dried leaves, moss, and pine needles. They diluted and adjusted the distillates until reaching 18% vol., achieving a drink reminiscent of the aroma of forest soil—its humid side—autumn woods. A second reflection the dish wanted to introduce was the weight of the cup: in gastronomic experiences, we usually have four of the five senses on alert, while hearing is less “at the table,” unless it is for conversation.

For me, the issue (if there is one) is not that chefs all over the world want to represent gastronomically the feeling of being in the forest after rain, the smell of wet earth, and its landscape (in the end, it is simply “the landscape in a pot,” and representing and explaining our surroundings has universal relevance), but rather the fact that it is expressed in the same way, and that—through both technique and aesthetics—everything ends up looking so similar: waters, extracts and soil distillates; wood infusions; Bullinian moss and chlorophyll ice creams and sponges; branch- and leaf-shaped biscuits; powdered bark; dried leaves, crushed and manipulated to the extreme until they become powder; butter crumbles; branches, leaves and flowers as décor, serving a small canapé or petit four among the props—until dishes start to resemble glass terrariums from florists more than something to eat.

*This comment could be perfectly extended to marine landscapes, with Bullinian sponges and plankton ice creams, seaweeds and all sorts of marine herbs; starfish-shaped freeze-dried elements; pebbles to decorate the plate, etc.

I think this is one of the reasons why, in recent years, many of us have enjoyed restaurants such as Bagá, the current Enigma, Reale, Il Tavolo dello Chef at Del Cambio, and others so much: because they do not use the resources of “memories,” “childhood,” and “nature” as the central creative process. They do not create directly from tradition and an old repertoire; rather, they start from other points of departure such as taste, a technique, a reflection, and so on.

It is an aesthetic I strongly associate with Japanese cuisine and Nordic cuisine—or, to be more precise, with kaiseki and with Noma—and I distinguish it from the way more “vegetable-forward” dishes are plated, such as Michel Bras’ “Gargouillou” or Crippa’s “Insalata 21, 31, 41, 51…”, a line that restaurants like La Doyenné follow.

I also wonder to what extent the fact that Narisawa frames a creative process—asking himself where his inspiration comes from when creating a new dish—moves him away from a more orthodox and traditional Japanese essence, and from that way of doing things where the only concern is eternal repetition in order to achieve excellence in a process: the idea of the shokunin.

Returning to the meal I had, the tableware seemed entirely Japanese, from lacquered wood to glazed ceramics, and there was not a single dish served on Limoges porcelain, nor on Ginori, Luesa & Vega, or Western brands. Even if it was high-quality artisan tableware, there was no piece that stood out especially for its beauty, nor any everyday object that conveyed much emotion. I would, however, highlight the quality of the papers—both the one used for the welcome sake, the one for the squid, and the one covering the amadai. They were beautiful vegetal papers, with textured fibers and a good weight; Narisawa likely uses washi paper (also known as wagami or “Japan paper”), the paper used for origami, shodō (calligraphy), and ukiyo-e. To be honest, it is hard for me to think of restaurants that use paper of such quality for plating or decoration. I think of the tableware Carme Ruscalleda made together with Victòria Rabal at the Molí Paperer of Capellades, which looked like an adaptation of kintsugi in paper; and also of the gyotaku of the parrotfish that became the cover of the book “Felicitat,” and of Rabal’s collaborations with Casa Cacao by the Roca brothers, producing the paper that wraps their chocolate bars. I also especially remember an El Bulli dish that was paper with flowers—if I recall correctly, it was dish 1364, a snack from 2007; in that case the paper was edible because, if I’m not mistaken, it was like sugar paper, but it felt like the gesture of pressing flowers between the pages of a book to dry them.

I like and value very positively when restaurants use local tableware and craftsmanship. I love Bone China porcelain, Manises ceramics, the ceramics of Pòrtol and Marratxí, La Bisbal, kintsugi, Moorish ceramics, etc.—but each thing in its place. Beyond that, serving food on the traditional tableware of each region seems to me a powerful way to transmit the essence of a culture, and it connects strongly with the km0 discourse.

The entire meal was served with both cutlery and chopsticks, which I appreciate. Even if we know how to use chopsticks well, there are foods (like eel or wagyu) that I enjoy much more when I can cut them with knife and fork rather than “pulling” them apart with chopsticks.

I found the storytelling during the meal very appropriate, offering the necessary explanations. It is clear that this is a cuisine with a message (I wonder whether any cuisine is not), but the ways of communicating that message arise in a fairly natural, believable, and coherent way.

When presenting dishes at the table, although they do emphasize the ingredient and its origin, they practically never mention the cooking techniques or the preparation process. It must also be said that, visually, the techniques seemed traditional (tempura, steaming, grilling, bread fermentation, grinding, crushing, slicing, infusing…). Perhaps this is indeed a cultural trait: secrecy, not sharing, not revealing the recipe or the “secret ingredient.”

As for kitchen tools, even though it is an open kitchen, you do not see them. You see the people, but the counter separating kitchen and dining room is high enough that you cannot see what they are cooking—something I imagine was done intentionally, so that the guest can see them but a certain distance and intimacy is preserved. There is also a small interior kitchen which, when I asked if we could see it, they did not show us. So at first glance, I did not see any of the kitchen devices that have appeared in the last 30 years, and they did not bring any to the table either to create spectacle.

Apart from the bread, all dishes came already plated from the kitchen; there were not many courses finished in front of the guest on a side table, not even sauces poured at the table once the plate arrived. Narisawa does not come out to serve any dish or to greet guests, which is not what I would expect in a restaurant of this profile. We only spoke to him because I asked whether it would be possible at the end of the meal, and the brief conversation happened literally at the entrance door just before leaving, without being able to go into any depth, with Ayumi as translator—while his son Leo speaks perfect English.

The structure of the menu felt quite Western, far from the structure of kaiseki menus. It also felt like a rather short, broad menu (1 appetizer, 6 courses, 2 desserts, and only 1 petit four), considering it is a 50 Best and Michelin restaurant.

I did not feel that I had eaten any great dish—one of those first-tier, world-class plates everyone applauds, that shocks you, stays with you forever, and becomes part of history. That does not mean dishes did not shine, were not well executed, or that Narisawa does not have iconic dishes. If I had to highlight one from my meal, it would be the eel with the fantastic sanshō.

The sixth and final page of the reminder is titled “What genre is NARISAWA?” Below, I translate the text from English:

We take the rich culinary culture of Satoyama and the wisdom of our ancestors, and filter them through NARISAWA to invent a new and independent genre called “Innovative Satoyama Cuisine.”

The Japanese term “Ji’nen,” the spirit of nature, refers to the coexistence of nature and people who practice Satoyama culture. Embodying this spirit, at NARISAWA we create a gastronomy that is beneficial and sustainable for the environment, which we call Beneficial and Sustainable Gastronomy.

*“Ji’nen” is sometimes written and pronounced as “shizen,” and its meaning is less tied specifically to “nature” and more to what is “natural”—the spontaneous way of being born, growing, and transforming.

I notice that they always write Narisawa in all caps—NARISAWA—which I do not like very much, and it makes me think of El Bulli, which did the opposite, writing all dish names in lowercase, even initials, something Albert Raurich continued at Dos Palillos (in fact, “dos palillos”). These may seem like typographic issues, but I think all of it is communication, and it also defines the character of a restaurant.

The Japanese—and Narisawa himself—consider Narisawa an “innovative” restaurant, but seen from a European perspective, I think his cuisine is clearly classic. I would not even use the word “avant-garde” to define it—or I would at least specify that it is a very mild innovation, so as not to confuse it with a restaurant of creative cuisine.

I chose Narisawa as the first stop of the trip, as a bridge between Western and Eastern cuisine, because I expected it to be more “Western” than traditionally—or antiquatedly—Japanese. Now that I’ve been, honestly, even if they sell it as a bridge between kaiseki and French cuisine, it felt to me like a restaurant far more French than Japanese (whatever “Japanese cuisine” is supposed to mean), and at no point did I feel—let alone experience—a cultural shock, which is precisely what I was travelling to Japan for. RyuGin, for example, even though it has a similar Michelin and 50 Best profile to Narisawa, strikes me as a more kaiseki-driven proposition than Narisawa.

At this point, I wonder whether one could speak of fusion cuisine, since interpretations of that label are very broad.

In any case, the whole paraphernalia is so Western that, depending on how you look at it, it is almost chilling. I find myself wondering to what extent certain very traditional, conservative, orthodox chefs are proud of restaurants like Narisawa, RyuGin, Hakkoku, or other Japanese chefs who live with one foot in each world.

OTHER THOUGHTS AND FINAL REFLECTIONS

The Narisawas strike me as Japanese who have always looked to the West—whether Europe or the United States—which, for better or worse, seems unusual among Japanese people, whether young or old.

Perhaps these are linguistic prejudices. Perhaps we Catalans are particularly sensitive about language. But the fact that they explain and communicate their menu and their culture in English distances me from their culture and their cuisine. I don’t want to be told “tilefish”; I want to be told “amadai.” Otherwise, I feel like I’m in a Japanese restaurant in London or New York, for instance. This reaction doesn’t surprise me at all.

Language is part of culture. And in translation you lose a huge number of nuances—intonations, subtleties, interpretations… Yet I don’t think everyone is aware of how important it is to convey a cuisine in its own language. We could apply this to ourselves too and not call it “pan con tomate,” for example, when what we say is “pa amb tomàquet.” When we travel, we do learn to say “Bratwurst” and “shichimi tōgarashi,” and we don’t say “German sausage” or “seven spices.” But with Japanese, there’s no choice: I tried to learn as much Japanese as I could before travelling, and once there I did everything I could to get them to say as many things as possible in Japanese. But I can’t go beyond a certain point and, obviously, I had to resort to English whenever they spoke it—another issue entirely. In Catalan restaurants, service can quickly be done in 6, 8, or 9 languages. In Japan, you’re lucky if, beyond Japanese, they can offer you English or Chinese.

Given the price, the number of stars, and its position in the 50 Best—also the open kitchen—I place it as a kind of Asian equivalent of Bruno Verjus; and when I compare them, the Parisian is clearly better. For me, €400 goes further at the counter on rue de Prague: Narisawa moved me through the narrative, but not as much through taste as Verjus. Seeing Robuchon-like interpretations there also makes me think of dishes at today’s Le Pré Catelan, with the Mehdi Sgard – Frédéric Anton tandem. Overall, it makes me think far too often of French, Catalan, and Italian cuisine.

Given how many three-star restaurants Tokyo has (12), never having reached the third in these 16 years must, I imagine, be relatively frustrating for them; I assume the recent renovation of the restaurant is intentional and aimed in that direction.

I also have the impression that the new wave of “gourmet travellers” are no longer into Narisawa (they now define it as “a restaurant for tourists,” a remark I find rather mean-spirited—especially considering that those who say it are often tourists themselves), just as they are no longer into RyuGin, and just as the obsession with Florilège, L’Effervescence, and Den has also passed. Now they only have eyes for Sézanne. In other words: even if it still has a mostly foreign, mostly Western clientele, those who want to appear fully up to date are going to Sézanne.

Narisawa seems to me a good way to encounter and be introduced to satoyama from Tokyo; you genuinely travel through the country via its products, and it makes you want to visit the rest of Japan. As Narisawa says, if you live in an urban environment, your relationship with nature gradually disappears. So his proposal makes sense in a metropolis like Tokyo, with 14 million inhabitants. The point is that—whether because of how they explain satoyama, the virtues of the cuisine, the charms we find in Japan, my interest in learning about the culture, or the romantic lens through which I view satoyama—Narisawa does manage to bring us a little closer to Japanese culture and spirit.

I hope I have also contributed to making the satoyama landscape better known—its aesthetic beauty, its biodiversity, and its valuable cultural heritage—and that I have explained well how these landscapes sustainably provide multiple goods and services, food security, and livelihoods for millions of small farmers.

Very often, Narisawa’s view of nature and its application to cooking makes me think of the essence of haiku: we do not force nature to “say” anything; we let it speak as it is, without disguises. Even if I have to make an effort to feel it truly in that way, I believe Narisawa’s intention could be—stated intensely—that his cuisine turns nature into a pure poetic object, and that taste (a flavor) should not need any justification in order to move us.