An Epicurean Jaunt in Japan

Text: Devanshi Mody

Japan is in the throes of a culinary revolution with organic produce and vegetarian dining coming into vogue. These trends have infiltrated even the remotest ryokans, those unique Japanese inns where you escape to sup on kaiseki, soak in onsens and wake up to amazing Japanese breakfasts. Another gourmet-getaway is the auberge, a Frenchified version of the traditional ryokan where cuisine is generally a fusion of French and Japanese to captivate the hopelessly Francophile Japanese. A traipse through some of Japan's most deliciously picturesque spots can only be punctuated by long culinary commas at some of the destination's finest epicurean abodes.

Hoshinoya Fuji: You decide on a Fuji day-tour with Japan Private Tour which has a 5-star rating. Then you note Hoshinoya Fuji also has a 5-star user-rating. So, you eat the cake and have it too by asking Japan Private Tour to dispatch Ken, the slickest driver in Japan, to whizz you in their black vans sleek as sharks, to Hoshinoya Fuji, Japan's most original and exhilarating offering. And you discover glamping! The swank Sky Terrace under vaulted heavens, in a whoosh of trees, awes. Kids commandeer the space at afternoon u00ecSweet Time.u00ee Interestingly, their parents as energetically barbecue marshmallows on the camp fire, their plates toppling over with homemade cookies and ice-cream, grilled seasonal fruit and seasonal jams (think cherry blossom). This place is about ingenious outdoor dining experiences. Expect Dutch Oven Dinner, Pressed Sandwich Breakfast, Food Smoking Workshops etc. Even a hike to a hilltop to spot Fuji's famous lakes involves a beautifully packed picnic. If you dine in-room, meals happen on your private outdoor terrace where you gorge from the superb wooden Breakfast Box with voluptuous Dutch-oven bread, gorgeous "glamping" soup and rustic-chic food. Book the "S cabin' for a terrace with fireplace where things get hotter over the extraordinary Glamping Curry. You are brought rice and curry which preside on hot plates as you play around with an array of spices and condiments to customise your curry. Only Mt Fuji looming before you will witness the gluttony. Discreet staff don't notice the demolished contents of the cauldron. There's also a restaurant which unleashes the Seasonal Grilled Dinner, a cornucopia of cheeses, dips and salad as fresh as a spring morning at dawn. Drink it all down with the choicest Japanese regional wines. Honbo Shuzo Sannokura Rouge veers the elegance of a French Burgundy more than any New World pinot noir. After supper court the campfire sipping quality sake strummed to by a Japanese guitarist. It's outdoor theatre with stars sprayed across the skies for footlights.

Hoshinoya Kyoto, Arashiyama: River-set on the Katsura's jade-blue silken sleeve, on a rind of land wound around Arashiyama's verdured hills, this heritage villa is accessed romantically via boat. Incense perfumes the air; a strumming musician seems afloat on a waterbody; the river's meander rises to a zen garden. Hoary moss-draped stone steps lead to the "Ku Suite', extended over the water as if lending its ear to the river's perpetual serenade. From the living room's Japanese low seats behold the parade of the seasons. But you're generally lying face-down with the beauteous needle-wielding acupuncture therapist Yoshida Zukeran straddling your back like in a scene from a Bond film. In rooms relish Japanese hot-pot breakfasts. The stylish Kura Bar offers ravishing complimentary hand-crafted suites (chestnut, dandelion etc) sourced from a centuries-old shop.  In the restaurant Frenchified kaiseki suppers are orchestrated by a French-trained Japanese chef. After supper creep through windows in the lobby lounge onto a terrace strip with low chairs to sip matcha green tea as the river, the seasons and Eternity roll by. On departure General Manager Taro Hirooka escorts you to the station. He carries your luggage. He remains on the platform, deeply bowed, until you depart. This delicious morsel of Japanese hospitality lingers on memory's palate.

Ritz-Carlton Osaka: "What do you fancy?" asks Guests Relations Manager Chieko Matani. She's kneeling at your feet, you're in the private club lounge, it's 9.30 pm. You've arrived late, the dinner service is over. They won't hear of you suffering bread and cheese and pastries (and they are very good). You fancy Chinese noodles? Next, you're at Xiang Tao endowed with marvellous Chinese antiques and an amazing new Chinese chef who whips up a delectable bundle of noodles in minutes. No, it's not Maggi, just dexterity. But what you really savour is the hospitality, the quintessence of Japanese omonateshi which reigns over this hotel re-creating an 18th Cent Georgian mansion rigged out in European and British paintings, antiques and fine China. Carpets are Persians, of course. The hotel is a culinary getaway boasting speciality French, Japanese, Chinese and Italian restaurants, besides a lobby lounge, bar and outstanding club lounge where delicate French-style afternoon teas unfurl. But the show-stopper is the Japanese fine dining restaurant Hanagatami where tempura chef Takeshi Fukana dishes out hot-hot tempura as crisp as a cricket which young sommelier Tatsuro pairs with champagnes from boutique producers including Gatinois Grand Cru Ay R&eacuteserve Brut N.V.  and Philipponnat Royale Reserve Brut N.V.  You'd go back to Osaka just to dine at the Ritz-Carlton. Again and again.

Ritz-Carlton Kyoto: If typhoon-struck in Kyoto the only place to be typhoon-stuck is at Japan's most glamorous address. Watch the banshee-like typhoon batter down from swish river-view rooms with broad TV-screen-like windows presenting live nature's action-packed drama. But storms don't last as long
as the leisurely kaiseki supper at Mizuki and you'd hope La Locanda's Italian supper could outlast eternity- it's that good! Chef Tatsuya Ozajka deftly fuses Italian cuisine with Kyoto class to create a unique style defined by premium ingredients. Try his seasonal vegetable salad with Kubota young herbs and flower dressing and minestrone refined beyond imagination. Risotto with seven-year-old acquerello rice, lemon, fennel & chamomile might sound grand but the signature dish is the seemingly simple yet masterminded Gragnano Spaghetti, lean as eels in regally rich extra virgin olive oil ablush with  four kinds of Japanese tomatoes. All the while the young barman knocks out nifty Duc de montagne Bellinis as you keep clamouring "Encore!" Pierre Herm&eacute supplies desserts but his tiramisu seems a misfit in a ball-gown after Ozajka's trim cocktail-dress creations. Breakfast is a gala matutinal ritual with fruit and yoghurt trolley-rolled to your table. Nice. The engaging Chinese stewardess Ouyang Xinchun elaborates on honeys from Azerbaijan whilst revealing she is in Kyoto because "In China civil wars destroyed culture. Here, in Kyoto, Chinese culture is modified and preserved." Meanwhile the equally charismatic French F&B Director is doing you toast with 4-year-old compt&eacute. Older still is the private-dining room, a heritage structure poshed up into the glitziest of PDRs. As expected at The Ritz-Carlton.  

Hiramatsu Hotels & Resorts Atami: Hill-perched against a bamboo forest, this super-exclusive sea-facing ryokan could be in Monte-Carlo. But Monte-Carlo hasn't those 2 contemporised tatami-matted Japanese suites Ume (Plum) and Matsu (Pine) courtesy of Kinoshita who designed the tea-house at Kyoto's celebrated Golden Pavilion. These suites fetch up to $2900 making them arguably Japan's priciest. Doubtless Matsu is Japan's most enchanting suite girded by a private garden with pine trees and traditional tea-house. A jazzy outdoors onsen sits by a waterbody seamless with blue seas flying away into the horizon and you can dine al fresco or in-suite in traditional Japanese style at a sunken table amidst the handsomest antiques, fine woodwork and famous paintings. But it's worth experiencing the charming sea-view restaurant where Japanese chef Katsuya Miura trained at. Hiramatsu's Michelin-starred Parisian restaurant effects French cuisine served by tail-coated stewards headed by a towering young Indonesian Arga Stepanus, the only English-speaking staff member. The cream of Japanese society checks into this ryokan for creations deploying local ingredients in French cuisine. You could have a wonderful bitter gourd velout&eacute, eel in Japanese horseradish sauce or roasted duck breast with saut&eacuteed figs, dark miso and port wine butter. The French-Japanese marriage endures over desserts like Summer Orange Gratin, Japanese Hojicha ice-cream but the grand cheese trolley that precedes dessert is all-French as is the luxurious butter. Jams too are, bien sur, from France over the best continental breakfasts with viennoiserie that seems to have strode fresh and hot and flake-at-touch from France. And mini baguettes with a surprising sumptuously creamed soup (at breakfast, imagine!) seems decadence worthy of Versailles.

Sankara Resort & Spa, Yakushima: You can judge a hotel by its welcome drink. By the blinding-blue infinity pool that seemingly slips into glinting seas beyond an alluring crimson, Shiso soda stands shimmering in a slender champagne flute in a blaze of southern sunshine. Composed of shiso, orange and lemon it's the craftiest welcome drink in Japan. And you'll understand why this auberge with Balinese-style villas set amidst Yakushima's heady rainforests in southern Japan is where Tokyo's elite fly over just for a gourmet weekend. The hotel's beverage barrage astonishes. The library dispenses complimentary sweet potato liquor shouchu but there are more colourful creations besides. Like traffic lights, Sankara's streaming drinks change colour- crimson shiso soda, amber passion-fruit champagne cocktails and green beat-this-if-you-can breakfast smoothie. At the green signal you stop to down 6 glasses of this exquisite spinach-mango-apple-pineapple elixir. Then embark on island tours with Steve Bell from YES! Yakushima who'll guide you through Yakushima's history, culture and nature, when not escorting the US Ambassador. Post-tour, give yourself over to exotic champagne suppers at Okas. Kenji Hayashi's French-style creations with Yakushima ingredients  are of humbling artistry. Think Avocado & Sweet Potato Tartar with Taragon Rice Cakes, Roasted Corn Potato with Coffee. If your nose wrinkled hearing pan-fried radish dumpling in mushroom bullion, expect an innovation honed into a delicacy that'll leave you clamouring for more. But then there's Hibiscus Risotto & Wild Plant Tempura and two desserts heralded by  Strawberry Guava Soup and Yakushima Banana Ice Creams. Okas is about spectacular 7-course d&eacutegustations. But at Ayana, young Chef Oyama effects excellent modern European cuisine. Come morning he unveils outstanding breakfast buffets belting out breads galore: filled with red bean, topped with rock salt, made with rice.

Zaborin, Kutchan: Live-in art gallery athrob with all sorts of artwork. There's art too in architect Makoto Nakayama's emphatic use of glass that frames the ethereal natural surrounds into a seeming stream of paintings. Behind the bar Mt Yotei hangs like a tableau whilst the glassy fish-tank-like rooms present a dizzying array of forested trees or bucolic idyll: think cow-dotted meadows or rill-run forest to be imbibed from an outdoors private onsen or from your terrace perch as you devour addictive home-made in-room Japanese snacks and guzzle fabulous homemade juices. Extract yourself only for Japan's finest cuisine crafted by tunnel-engineer-turned-chef Oshihiro Seno whose constructs are sheer mathematical perfection. But they aren't clinical, as is much gastronomy nowadays. Seno's creations are stupendously delicious. And of remarkable originality rarefied to fine art. In these art-filled precincts culinary art doesn't cower before any other. Indeed, even mere pickles here are like pieces of delicate porcelain. GM Takakiyo Sekine (who has an F&B background and compiled the hefty wine list with an imposing champagne collection) discloses the pernickety Seno hand-picks vegetables from different organic farms and is adamant about 2 different rice varieties including all-natural breakfast rice cultivated on a hilltop! Naturally, breakfast, like supper, is consummate art. And if at breakfast the zen-like tea master opens a sliver of window to invite the singing wind, after supper you are escorted for dessert up to the "living room" from where a sprawl of glass frames a magically lit outdoors. You're torn between the bewitching view and the equally spellbinding braised chestnut, chestnut cream, coffee & soybean paste and walnut ice cream dessert on your lap. Choices choices...

Ibusuki Hakusuikan, Kagoshima: Mr Shimotakahara who owns the ryokan is a man of inimitable charm, eloquence and flamboyance, a veritable character. He is also massively knowledgable about Japanese history and culture. He can also speak to you of everyone from Sean Connery who stayed at the hotel when Mr Shino was only 8 during the filming of You Only Live Twice and former Russian President Boris Yeltsin who came over in a private jet. It's a pleasure and privilege to dine with Mr Shimo. And he is ever delighted to present his Italian restaurant Fenice set in the renowned in-house Satsuma-Denshokan Museum showcasing an overwhelming collection of Satsuma paintings and porcelain. The museum and restaurant set on a water body are spectacular examples of contemporary Japanese architecture. Within the restaurant a striking white piano  greets. Homemade pastas are excellent and wines so exclusive they can only be served by special authorisation from the vineyard. Ask Mr Shimo to recommend. They are his favourite wines!

Beniya Mukayu, Ryokan Collection, Kanazawa: Mukayu means empty and this place is about the elegance of emptiness. Stretches of glass overlook gardens conjuring seamlessness with Nature. A delicious composure reigns, reinforced by Kenya Hara's Tsukubai sensational installation which presides outside the spartan spa, also designed to usher in nature, where guests head after a kaiseki meal as is the wont in Japan. And you could well lie belly-down for a deep-tissue massage  because the cuisine here is light as a butterfly. Chef Kinomoto Yoshinori's limpid broths and lithe creations reflect the ryokan's zen ethos. The cuisine isn't about subtlety and the vigour of nature's bounty which perhaps gives Kanazawa's women that near-translucent skin- remark the very lovely Ikumi,  delicate of feature and manner, as she serves kaiseki supper with a poetry about her demeanour. Each supper course arrives in vibrant regional ceramics and lacquerware chosen by owner Mrs Nakamichi (these delightful ceramics also colour tea ceremonies conducted by Mr Nakamichi in the gardened teahouse).  Zen cedes to drama with the execution of Char-grilled autumn vegetables as lotus root, gorojima sweet potato, red okra, ginkgo nuts etc are grilled fantastically at your table. After stupendously good miso soup and ginger rice supper culminates in unexpectedly excellent salt or soy milk ice-cream. After supper, if the spa is booked, embrace your spartan glass-facaded rooms and immerse yourself in a private outdoors onsen embowered in a tumble of foliage. Next morning, after amazing Japanese breakfasts you'd feign loll around in your onsen. But Edward Kidman from Guest Relations is dispatching you on a salubrious riverside stroll in the pristine crispness of Yamanaka, the most delectable place in Japan!