Beyond a nondescript door and up a dimly lit staircase lies the world of Tokyo chef Yoshiaki Takazawa. Takazawa presides over his eponymous 10-seat restaurant on a slightly raised platform, where he puts the final details on the food. Offering service and presentation based on a Japanese tea ceremony, he encourages guests to take a three-hour culinary journey with him. Each dish on the set menu tells a story with both unique techniques and unexpected tastes, making Takazawa’s menu one of the most coveted in the world.
Rock on the Seashore
In this dish, “Rock on the Seashore,” Takazawa disguises bass with a black bread skin and fills it with potato puree to make it look like a stone. It’s accompanied by Spanish shellfish and covered with seaweed from Okinawa.
Takazawa’s take: “I wanted to express the seaside as lively as possible on the dinner table. I also wanted to present something new and different from the common plate of bass wrapped in pie.”
Courtesy Yoshiaki Takazawa
In the “Dinosaur Egg from Miyazaki,” the egg is actually a brightly flavored meringue filled with mango puree. The egg shell is white chocolate with turmeric and chile powder and the dino footprints are made of wasabi.With “Ayu in Clear Stream,” Takazawa uses a special technique that appears to freeze the fish in motion. The fish are served with a delicious cucumber soup, as the ayu fish is said to smell like the vegetable when it’s fresh.Takazawa’s take on caviar, his “Raindrops” are actually tiny beads of tomato water. The dish is presented by delicately allowing each drop to shower down a lotus leaf onto a delicately cooked hamo fish.
