In my second post on The Compère, or my first proper post since my introduction, I shall review one of my favorite recent dining experiences, namely at La Cime, Osaka in May 2018. In so doing, I hope to familiarize my readers with the kind of style and substance I aim to achieve here. As stated previously, I do not desire to post conventional restaurant reviews and thereby showcase all the fine food I have eaten that my readers have not. Rather, as I dine my way across the world and reflect on my culinary adventures, my wish is to contemplate, not all at once, various subjects such as the state of gastronomy today in a global or regional context, the historical context from which it has evolved, and potentially the future of gastronomy. In simpler terms, I hope to use what I have eaten as a platform to explore the meaning of food in our lives. I would like to emphasize here that I set out to do this not as an informed food critic, nor as an cultural anthropologist, but only as a simple lover of food and a curious soul.
Notice that I used the word “gastronomy” above and not just food. Etymologically, the word ‘gastronomy’ is derived from Ancient Greek and translates to “the art or law of regulating the stomach”. A quick modern dictionary search gives the definition of gastronomy as “the art or science of good eating,” but Wikipedia offers a richer definition: “Gastronomy is the study of the relationship between food and culture, the art of preparing and serving rich or delicate and appetizing food, the cooking styles of particular regions, and the science of good eating.” By such conceptualization, gastronomy is multi-disciplinary and examines food and its related experiences from a variety of perspectives and foci. I favor such a holistic approach to thinking about food because it recognizes that food is not merely something we put into our mouths. Instead, it recognizes the potential for food to be so much more, such as an important part of our cultural identity, or a representation of scientific progress (more on this in a future post). Most food blogs, I have found, overlook this potential, which is not to be a criticism. A food blog that points readers towards the best restaurants in a particular city after all serves a useful role, but it nevertheless assumes a limited conception of food. Finally, underlying gastronomy is a broad desire for not just ordinary eating, but good eating. What then, you may ask, is good eating? This question is probably the starting point of all gastronomic pursuits. I suspect I may spend my entire life chasing an answer.
Let me get back to my experience at La Cime. The Michelin 2-starred restaurant was set up by Chef Yusuke Takada in Osaka’s Honmachi district in 2010 and serves contemporary French cuisine. Takada studied at the Tsuji Culinary Institute, Japan’s most famous culinary school, and went on to work at Taillevent and Le Meurice in Paris before returning to Osaka. In Asia’s Best Restaurants 2018, La Cime was ranked 17th, the higher of two entries from Osaka on the list. Being also the only restaurant of the two that serves lunch, I had decided to dine there one fine afternoon during my trip. Now, I typically spring for the dinner menu when I visit a new fine-dining establishment during my travels, because there is no better way to wind down a long day than with a good meal, and because it is usually at dinner when a restaurant typically serves up all it has to offer. However, given the limited amount of time I had in Osaka and my desire to sample the famous Osaka street foods that come mostly to life at night, I had set my sights on lunch at La Cime. ¥8,500 pre-tax (~USD$77 at the time of writing) for 9 courses meant that the lunch was surprisingly affordable, while the reservation was exceedingly easy to obtain (English-speaking staff accept international reservations over the phone, quite a rarity in Japan actually). So far, so good.
Then, I invited my travel companion to join me for lunch, and to my dismay he swiftly declined. Now, it might have very well been that he was not a fan of French cuisine, and I am not wont to pass judgement on the subjective tastes of others, but the main reason my companion offered was, to paraphrase, “I would prefer to eat Japanese cuisine when I am in Japan”. It made me pause. Such a notion is probably not foreign to many, as I have come across similar lines of thought in many other travelers. The idea of “when in Rome, eat as the Romans eat” is certainly not without merit, partly because a cuisine is arguably at its most authentic in its place of birth, and partly because there is much to learn about a culture by eating as the locals do. But, I want to question the possible hidden assumptions behind this notion. If we were to believe that we should eat only Japanese food when visiting Japan, are we assuming, be it consciously or subconsciously, that foreign cuisines available in Japan are not worth eating? Are we assuming that there is nothing to be gained by eating a foreign cuisine in Japan, because said foreign cuisine is best eaten in its place of birth? By extension, are we assuming that Japanese food should not be eaten outside Japan, because it will never be as good as the food found in Japan? Once we begin to question these assumptions, we should then begin to see the difficulty in delineating global cuisines by geographic boundaries. I would like to point out that I do not, at this moment, advocate for the complete elimination of geographic boundaries in food, if that is even possible. After all, a particular cuisine will always have a special place in its hometown, not least because it is intertwined with its hometown’s history and cultural identity. I have yet to find Japanese food more authentic outside of Japan. What I hope to do, however, is to disabuse you of the notion that a cuisine has nothing to offer in a foreign land, apart from providing the people of said foreign land easy access to exotic food. Thankfully, in this age of globalization, we have begun to see various cuisines being successfully exported and reinterpreted all across the world, and scores of young, innovative chefs obtaining their inspirations from abroad. Perhaps then, as globalization continues further, will foreign cuisines enter travelers’ decision-making matrices.
There is another reason why I was receptive, perhaps even eager, to sample French cuisine in Japan. It goes beyond the fact that French and Japanese cuisines are my two favorite cuisines. I could go on and on as to why I love these two cuisines individually, but this is not the time for it. Rather, it was due to my belief that French and Japanese cuisines make happy bedfellows, or, to put it in simpler terms, that they go especially well together. This is my personal opinion, and you are more than welcome to dissent if you have evidence otherwise, but there is just something almost magical about the combination of French and Japanese cuisines, based upon my limited encounters. Despite French and traditional Japanese cuisines being among the world’s most codified, they nevertheless seem to make significant room for cross-pollination. Importantly, I am not strictly referring to French-Japanese “fusion cuisine”. When a particular cuisine borrows elements from another, at what point does it cease to be itself, and become a fusion? 25%? 50%? How does one even quantify those elements? Historically speaking, most modern cuisines, as we know them today, have incorporated elements from others and, by transforming those elements in various ways, made those elements “their own”. In fact, Japanese cuisine is said to have readily adapted and hybridized foreign foods to suit the palates of the local people. Did you know, for example, that tempura originated from the fritter-cooking techniques introduced by Portuguese missionaries and merchants residing in Nagasaki in the 16th century? Yet tempura is not recognized as Portuguese, or Portuguese-Japanese for that matter. The takeaway is that cuisines are not static creatures and their boundaries are constantly evolving.
But back to French and Japanese cuisines. Leaving aside chefs who label their food as fusion, there are many Japanese chefs in the world today who borrow elements from French cuisine and continue to cook what is quintessentially Japanese. Likewise, there are French chefs who borrow elements from Japanese cuisine while keeping their food French, though the numbers are arguably smaller. The most readily encountered form of French-Japanese cross-pollination today is one where French preparation and cooking techniques are combined with Japanese ingredients and sensibilities. Why is this so? As intimated above, defining a cuisine is almost always a contentious and reductive affair, but French cuisine is widely known for its preparation and cooking techniques, which form the basis for a good number of contemporary cuisines in the world today. Meanwhile, Japanese cuisine is renowned for its almost razer-sharp focus on the essence of the ingredients. Thus, combining French techniques with Japanese ingredients seems like the most natural step forward, and indeed this is what many Japanese chefs today aim to accomplish. Some of the most highly regarded French restaurants in Japan have successfully achieved this, to varying degrees of course. Similarly, there are established kaiseki restaurants in Japan – kaiseki being the traditional Japanese equivalent of Western haute cuisine – that have become known for their incorporation of Western, including French, techniques. A quick look at the Michelin guide for Japan will reveal that there are far more ranked French restaurants than restaurants serving other foreign cuisines. To illustrate, in 2016 Tokyo’s guide featured 48 French restaurants and only 10 Italian ones. This implies a possibility, though it is insufficient to confirm, that French and Japanese cuisines go better in hand. It could be the case that only a small number of Japanese chefs have been trained in Italian techniques, and have returned to Japan to combine them with local ingredients. Or, it could be the case that Japanese people on average favor French cuisine over Italian and others. Whatever the reason, the world of French cuisine in Japan is an exciting one to explore today.
At this point, a quick look into the history of French-Japanese culinary interactions may provide interesting perspectives. Following the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Japan was quickly introduced to foreign foods and that eventually gave birth to what is known dearly in Japan today as yoshoku (洋食). Now, while yoshoku traces its origins to multiple cuisines including French, German, and British, it was French cuisine in particular that was served at diplomatic, imperial court and other official functions. When the Restoration government established a foreign settlement in Tsukiji, the first person employed as the head chef at the Tsukiji Hotel, the first Western-style hotel in Japan, was a Frenchman, Louis Begeux. Begeux went on to work at other hotels and later helped to prepare meals for banquets at the Imperial Palace, cementing his reputation as the “father of French cuisine in Japan”, according to the National Diet Library. Following Begeux, a number of famous Japanese chefs trained in France and were essential in furthering the development of French cuisine in Japan, some of whom worked in the Ritz Hotel in Paris under Auguste Escoffier (1846-1935). While Japanese chefs first began to train in France during the Meiji and Taisho eras, it was only in the 1960s when a great number of Japanese traveled to France to study cooking, coinciding with the rise of nouvelle cuisine, what is arguably the most important movement in modern French cuisine. Nouvelle cuisine was popularized in the 1960s by food critics Henri Gault, André Gayot and Christian Millau, and in essence promoted simplicity and elegance in creating dishes over the excesses and luxury favored in cuisine classique. While contested by several famous French chefs such as Michel Bras and Pierre Gagnaire, the lightly cooked, lightly sauced, yet intricately plated dishes found in nouvelle cuisine were at least partially inspired by Japanese kaiseki, argues Meghan McCarron over at Eater. Whatever the precise source and timing of that inspiration, it remains clear that many Japanese chefs have adopted techniques from France over the years, and a number of venerated French chefs have been inspired by Japanese cuisine upon visiting Japan. An important moment in history occurred when Paul Bocuse (1926-2018), deemed the “Pope” of French cuisine, first visited Japan upon the invitation of Tsuji Shizuo, founder of the Tsuji Culinary Institute (the exact year of the visit seems to be uncertain). Bocuse admitted subsequently that his visits to Japan had a far more profound influence on his cooking than he expected. So, all in all, we can see that the exchanges between French and Japanese cuisines run deep.
For a more detailed look into the history of French cuisine in Japan, you can visit the website hosted by the National Diet Library of Japan in collaboration with the Bibliothèque nationale de France here. Meghan McCarron’s article on the influences of kaiseki on modern fine-dining can meanwhile be found here. Finally, you can watch a video here from a conference held in Tokyo in December 2016 by Relais & Châteaux, where Jean-Robert Pitte, a professor of geography focused on foodways, gave a presentation on the mutual cross-pollination between Japan and Europe, especially France.
So hopefully, after coming this far, I have opened your eyes to the potential of exchange between French and Japanese cuisines, and demonstrated why I was immensely excited to sample the food at La Cime. On that fine day in May, I took the subway to Osaka’s Honmachi district and walked through the doors at the time of my reservation. Immediately, a staff member, whom I later realized was also the sommelier, greeted me by my name and walked me to my table. My initial surprise gave way to the realization that I was the only solo diner in the restaurant that day for lunch. There were only 4 or 5 other tables in the tiny dining room in which I was seated, and most of those were occupied by middle-aged Japanese ladies carrying Hermès Birkin bags. A Frenchman, whom I assume was the maître d’hôtel, or maitre d for short, then proceeded to reveal the menu. What then followed was one of the most pleasurable, refined, and well-executed meals I had eaten in a long time. Upon my inquiry regarding the wine pairing, the sommelier, to my surprise, brought 4 bottles of wine and a bottle of Champagne and placed them directly on my table. They looked interesting enough, and so I jumped at the wine pairing for an additional ¥6,500 (~USD$59), quite a steal to be honest.
The meal started off with a glass of Champagne from Billecart-Salmon. Now, I typically favor grower Champagnes to the extent I can afford them, grower Champagnes being those produced by estates that own the vineyards where the grapes are grown. But Billecart-Salmon, being one of the few family-owned Champagne houses still remaining, offers excellent value for their bubbly, and is thus one of the non-grower Champagnes I would happily recommend. The bubbly here was to be paired with the first three dishes, which were in the form of appetizers and also included La Cime’s sole specialty, the Boudin Dog, pictured above as a small black sphere atop rocks. Essentially, it is Boudin noir in black dough, colored with edible bamboo charcoal. Boudin noir is French blood sausage typically made with pig blood and served with cooked apples and/or mashed potatoes. Here, we can see how a rustic French ingredient is combined with an Asian ingredient that is more often used in food processing rather than actual food. The Boudin Dog was salty, savory, but not excessively so, and a surprisingly good way to start the meal. The two appetizers that followed were a ball of seaweed soaked in juices of shellfish and topped with edible flowers, as well as a small puff pastry made entirely of tomato and topped with cheese. Seaweed, shellfish, tomatoes and cheese, as you should know, are all foods rich in glutamic acids, the components that contribute to the fifth basic taste, “umami”. Needless to say, the appetizers provided small, rich, savory bursts of flavor that frankly left me desiring much more.
Next, a Riesling from Alsace, namely Florian & Mathilde BECK-HARTWEG 2016 from Dambach-La-Ville was paired with sole, another classic French ingredient, and shaved mushrooms in a mushroom-cream emulsion. The Riesling was dry (as I like it these days), round, with a briny minerality and notes of figs and peach, and complemented the earthiness of the mushrooms and the creaminess of the foam surprisingly well. Then came a Slovenian Merlot, which was another interesting choice of wine (I sadly lost the name of the producer). It was well-balanced, medium-bodied, fresh and easy to drink. I have not had much experience with Slovenian wines, to be very honest, though Slovenia is one of the hottest new producers at the moment. The Merlot was paired with smoked eel and eggplant, which were covered with Swiss chard in a dish that felt overall to me more Asian than French.
Then, a classic Pouilly-Fussé from Hospice de Beaune 2002 was paired with sea bass and onion and paprika. I love my Burgundies, alright, so it was hard to conceal my delight at the choices of the sommelier, and this Pouilly-Fussé had a very nice amount of age to it that complemented its creaminess and notes of toasted vanilla. The fish, seemingly French in style on the surface, was refreshingly accented by the paprika.
Finally, a Pommard, a classic red Burgundy from the Côte de Beaune by Philippe Pacalet. I forget the vintage, but it was surprisingly elegant and smooth for a Pommard, though the tannic structure that Pommards are known for was still well there. I had to resist downing the glass in one go. It was paired with the final entree, roasted pork from Amami Oshima, the chef’s hometown, along with asparagus and sabayon. For those wondering, sabayon is a French sauce made primarily with egg yolk that was adapted from zabaione, an Italian dessert.
The meal was rounded out by two rounds of desserts: first a cauliflower-based ice cream that I polished off swiftly and then a very interesting fusion dish. Jelly made with hyuganatsu, a Japanese citrus fruit, was topped with a mousse of tarragon and a crispy wafer that the restaurant called pain de campagne (typically French country bread). Tangy, herbaceous flavors with crunchiness in a bite – I probably heaved a sigh of pleasure. To my surprise yet again, the staff brought out petit fours and a complimentary round of Japanese tea at the very end.
Now let me explain what made the meal so great for me. On top of the delicate, refreshing flavors and the nothing-short-of excellent wine pairing, I found myself enveloped by an overall sense of elegance and relaxation while seated there and dining slowly alone. It is a feeling difficult to put into words, and it probably arose from the sense of every aspect of the meal done right. The ambience was modern, elegant and never attempted to distract from the food. The service was affable and never intrusive, and I had pleasant conversations with both the sommerlier (about my preferences in wine) and the maitre d (about his experiences working in Japan). The food was of just the right amount, and by the end of the meal I was perfectly satisfied and ready to embark on the rest of the day’s adventure. I recall thinking to myself as I sat there: “Dining alone has never felt more enjoyable, and this is exactly why I love French cuisine.” To be precise, it was modern French cuisine infused with that refined and delicious Japanese sensibility. My meal at La Cime, let me be clear, was not ground-breaking or mind-blowing or life-changing, and that is perfectly fine with me. It was, on the whole, impeccably executed and harmonious, with nary a glaring fault. If anything, I would only say that there was no particular dish that stood out, the kind that lingers in your memories and your taste buds, the kind that whispers of a moment of magic. But, not every restaurant needs to be a transformational experience. La Cime was just a place I would readily return whenever given an opportunity, a place without any pretensions or snooty exclusivity, where I know I can obtain French cuisine at its most enjoyable. Ah, if only many other French restaurants could be like this.
Despite holding only 2 Michelin stars, I was told, La Cime only exploded in popularity after it was ranked 17th on the Asia’s Best Restaurants 2018 list. The restaurant now welcomes many solo travelers from across Asia, both good news and a pity, in my opinion, for I hate to see restaurants I admire be overwhelmed by success. But Chef Takada and the rest of his crew certainly deserve all the success La Cime is getting. I have great hopes for the future of French cuisine in Japan, as well as for the many French restaurants in Japan I have yet to sample. At the same time, the rise of Japanese cuisine in France is also very much worth watching. Japanese cuisine in France may be steps behind French cuisine in Japan, but no one knows how far either of them can go. That, to me, gives me reason to live on.
To read about Chef Yusuke Takada’s philosophy, you can read his interview here with Pocket Concierge.
La Cime
1F Usami Building, 3-2-15 Kawaramachi, Chuo-ku, Osaka City, Osaka
http://www.la-cime.com/
