KASHIWAYA

The wooden lattice entry is located in a nondescript apartment house neighborhood twenty minutes’ drive from the bustling center of Osaka. There are no other restaurants anywhere in sight. Indeed, there is no commerce of any variety or description to be found in the environs. Across the narrow lane fronting the walls of apartments, a sound barrier shielding a highway. Yet the humble entry gate is a portal into what is no less than the greatest restaurant in Osaka and one of the most celebrated in all of Japan. 

The pinnacle of Japanese cuisine is a “kaiseki” meal which promises a multi-hour journey weaving together legends, rituals, seasonal celebrations, and stories told by the chef through the medium not only of the food, but also the designs on the service trays and dishes. A recent May dinner visit to Chef Hideaki Matsuo’s three Michelin star decorated Kashiwaya invited the guests to embark on an adventure passing through Japanese legends of the ice celebration, the opening of ayu season, a family tradition born from the raising of his children, inspirations from an Art Deco exhibit, and even pop art from Andy Warhol. All of these themes expressed through the parade of courses. 

Sharing common ground with Blancpain, Matsuo brings environmental sensitivity to his art. Sourcing products from the sea, the mantra of many is “wild caught”. But does that always make sense? With over- fishing of many species threatening long term survival, Matsuo has looked for creative farming solutions. A short history teaches why most farmed aquatic products have acquired a tarnished reputation in ­ Japan. After the war, the emphasis was producing inexpensive cultured fish. Cost was truly the driving factor. Matsuo has sought out producers with a different vision, one guided by quality. Of course, that means premium prices. He cites sea bream as an example. High quality sea bream demands three full years before harvesting. The imperatives of low prices drove producers to raise the fish for only two years or less with predictable quality consequences. Supported by no compromises chefs like Matsuo, there are now fish farms in Japan raising cultured marine products of high quality at correspondingly higher prices. These are cultured fish raised for longer periods, ­ under less crowded conditions in the tanks, fed better diets, and freed from excessive antibiotics. With these practices and an awareness of the imperatives of preservation of fragile wild species, Matsuo believes diners will not only accept cultured fish, but actually embrace them. After all, as he points out, we all accept farm raised beef, lamb, and poultry. His commitment to sustainable practices has earned him the Michelin Green Star awarded annually to those restaurants that hold themselves to ethical environmental standards and who work with suppliers observing sustainable standards. 

Matsuo’s cuisine is kaiseki. However, it is Osaka kaiseki which he distinguishes from the Kyoto style. Kyoto’s traditions are aristocratic, born of its history as the imperial capital of Japan. Osaka’s culture, by contrast, was commercial. Osaka customs favored preparations with greater power and more immediate impressions. The preferred konbu, the seaweed kelp, a dominant and essential ingredient in Japanese dashi, illustrates the divide between Osaka and Kyoto. Osaka’s dashi is most often prepared with ma-konbu which yields a more powerful and darker colored sauce. The Kyoto style leans toward a clear dashi. 

The design of the serving dish is important in kaiseki cuisine. Each course offering a shape and image fitting the theme of the course. For the sashimi course which followed the soup, the bowl’s upper edge featured a lace-like filigree suggesting seaweed. The sashimi offer­ ing flounder, horse mackerel, prawn, and a flower ing shiso pepper stalk was arranged as a portrait. Instead of the more conventional ponzu, Matsuo served a soy plum sauce with a bonito background polish. The sake was a Daiginjo. 

Asked to name one dish which he considers a signature of Kashiwaya, without hesitation Matsuo said it was his soufflé. Soufflés entered his repertoire not via his restaurant stove but rather at home. While making a soufflé with butter and flour for his daughter, he came up with the idea of a soufflé free of butter and flour to serve in his restaurant as a Japanese dish. He then set about evolving a preparation featuring vegetables. On this evening the soufflé had a red beet base accented by a pine nut paste, bonito, and small sea snails. It arrived in a ramekin encased within a ­ wooden lattice in the form of a sake barrel. Every spoonful revealed a different dimension, sweet, followed by savory, then umami. The concentration of flavors was exceptional. With a fine wine, one often speaks of length, the persistence of flavor after swallowing. Matsuo’s soufflé easily merited the same description. 

Allusions to ice and the season reappeared in the follow­ ing assortment of three small pairings presented in three separate small glasses. He seeks to include a small surprise in every preparation well illustrated in this course. The first was a yin-yang combination of abalone, cucumber, and chili. Every bite revealed a different dimension, the cool of the cucumber or the hit of heat from the chili. The second centered around conger eel. Recognizing the threat to the common eel population, Matsuo now serves only sustainable conger eel. Here in contrast to the sweet/spice personality of the abalone glass, there was savory/sweet: conger eel, white celery, and myouga (which resembles ginger). Third was a vegetable based glass with sweet potato, ground cherry, fava bean, and grated daikon (sweet/tart), the grated radish amplifying the ice theme with its snow like aspect. 

Late spring through the summer brings ayu to menus in Japan. Ayu is a small fresh water fish from Lake Biwa located not far from Osaka. Matsuo grills his ayu over binchotan charcoal. There is a bitter aspect to ayu, which, incidentally, is eaten head to tail, the head being the most bitter element. There is an interesting chemistry created with Matsuo’s tade vinegar placed alongside the grilled fish. Tade is sometimes referred to as “bitter leaf ” or “water pepper” and is the subject of an Asian proverb. It brings a spicy orange zest like flavor and lends its green hue to the vinegar. When dipped into the tade vinegar, which alone would be slightly bitter, the natural bitterness of the fish disappears, the combination producing a marvelous and unexpected sweetness. 

The vegetable course arrived in a covered bowl with a Japanese umbrella motif. The seasonal combination offered eggplant, taro, wheat gluten colored with sea-weed (aonori-fu), and a small sheath of wheat gluten skin (yuba). Bringing life to the assembly were fine threads of mellowed ginger covering the three. 

Traditionally the parade of savory kaiseki courses concludes with rice presented in an immense caldron and offered in whatever portion size the diner desires. In this case Matsuo brought an extra dimension to the rice by cooking it with white corn. Topping the corn/rice mix were pickled cold octopus, grunt (a fish resembling bass), cucumber, shiso pepper, myouga, and plum. The pickled fish, vegetables and pepper all bringing an intriguing zing to the rice. 

Andy Warhol made his appearance in the first dessert course. Brightly colored circles were a recurring theme in Warhol’s work and an exhibit visited by Matsuo gave him the inspiration for this dessert. Visually stunning, Matsuo assembled small orbs of cherry, grape, green melon, pineapple, kiwi, and water­ melon which sounded Warhol’s design. Adding ­ further brightness to the colors was the sheen of an Italian white wine honey gelee. 

To bring the meal to a close, Matsuo prepared a wedge of hisui (a jade jelly) and dices of white soymilk jelly napped with a brown sugar sauce. Of course, the white soy dice brought the evening full circle with the opening ice theme.