JadeSync

This being Japan, aesthetics are everything, even if the setting with stunning views of the Tokyo skyline is enticing enough. Diners pass through an elegant screen made with a woodworking technique that dates back more than 1,300 years, then there’s the impossibly smooth counter made from 350-year-old hinoki cypress wood, the elegant stage for Miyakawa’s Edomae-style sushi.

Edomae refers to the old name for Tokyo, Edo, and the bay, or “mae”, in front of it. In the early 19th century, it was the name given to sushi sold on the street, where fish was preserved in vinegar, salt and soy, while wasabi added flavour and also acted as an antibacterial agent.

Miyakawa and his chefs source their impeccable produce daily from Hokkaido and Tokyo’s Toyosu market – the recently opened replacement for the famed Tsukiji market. There’s one nigiri course lunch seating that runs to 18,000 yen (US$165) and an omakase at lunch or dinner for 28,000 yen per person.

The menus are expensive but far from outrageous when compared with Hong Kong, especially given the setting and the restaurant’s pedigree.

Dinner brings at least 10 pieces of nigiri sushi plus egg, soup and dessert, and starts with a generous selection of seasonal appetisers. Simmered rock fish, known as kinki, came with ginkgo nut, dashi and a delicious shiitake mushroom. Herring with mixed vegetables, plum sauce and kiku (chrysanthemum) was outstanding as was the contrast of smoky aubergine topped with vibrant Hokkaido salmon roe.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, all the sushi was outstanding, and deftly crafted by the three chefs in front of us.

The gizzard shad changed my perception of this slightly unglamorous fish, and the bonito, fatty tuna and Japanese tiger prawn were sublime. One of the staff explained that the tuna is caught between Aomori prefecture in northern Honshu and southern Hokkaido as the fish circle Japan, then presented a paper detailing where the cuts we were served came from on a 234kg specimen.

When they offered to make us another of any of the nigiri we’d chosen, we were sorely tempted, but the sublime Niseko milk ice cream came calling to wrap things in style.

Inua occupies a whole building a few blocks north of the Imperial Palace, with the elegant restaurant and lounge taking up one floor, while a research and development space and area for staff meals takes up almost as much room. It’s part of an approach which values staff above pretty much everything else.

Frebel explains how he gives them three days off a week. “This will be the future of our industry. No one wants to work 90 hours any more. It needs to be more sustainable.”

Every paid employee takes it in turn to go into the “dish pit” for five minutes to wash dishes. Frebel says: “The dishwasher is the most valuable person in your kitchen. They handle three to four times more money than any other employee on that day. Our tableware costs thousands of yen per piece, so if you break a plate you throw away half a tin of caviar.”

Even the stagiaires – essentially short-term interns – get respect and status almost unheard of elsewhere.

They get a comprehensive training plan at the start of their month-long term, because, Frebel says: “If you’re a bad teacher, then the next three weeks you’ll have a bad volunteer.”

While it all sounds like common sense, no kitchen I’ve yet come across takes such a profoundly egalitarian approach to its people.

As for the food, the best way to describe the experience at dinner was simply that I kept smiling throughout. Smiling at the brilliant young service and kitchen team who explained every dish with true passion. Smiling at the way other tables were laughing and discussing new dishes and ingredients. But most of all smiling at the food celebrating Japan’s extraordinary bounty that stretches, Frebel points out, 3,000km from sub-Arctic Hokkaido to subtropical Okinawa.

Amuse-bouches include wild kiwi with blackcurrant leaf oil, rosehip berries filled with kombu, pickled roses and lemon thyme.

An incredible enoki mushroom came draped in deer lardo, a type of cured fat. There were tiny wild cherries in a bowl, and a strawberry guava served with the instruction to “eat it as nature intended”.

A “cake” that was made from koji, a fermented soybean mould, came under delicate white shrimp, while a mind-blowing maitake mushroom dish had been aged for five days, then cooked slowly in smoke for four. It was served with salted and dried sakura leaves that, I was told, could be crumbled and used as salt.

Hokkaido king crab was lifted to new heights by a sauce made from the crab head and butter, but most memorable of all were “fish ribs”, delicately wound with string to provide clean handles so diners could savour the amazing gelatinous sweet flesh. Served with it, as part of a fascinating non-alcoholic pairing, (although wine pairings are an option) was smoked pepper juice with lacto-fermented plum.

The final hurrah was bee larvae claypot rice. Seriously. More expensive than sea urchin (and presumably, much harder to harvest), bee larvae are highly nutritious, with a distinct nutty taste and texture. My leftovers were even presented as an onigiri (rice ball) tosnack on later. The Inua “full expression of the season” menu runs to 29,800 yen.

Finally to a restaurant called Motif, at the Four Seasons,which overlooks the cityscape of Marunouchi and the sleek white shinkansen trains heading in and out of the vast Tokyo station. Sofas along one wall make for a relaxed feel on a Sunday night where pretty much every table is full. The food showed why.

Amuse-bouches included an espresso cup of cold, frothy sweetcorn soup as well as the only dish that did not quite work for me, a mix of saury fish and potato served in a “taco” of Parmesan.

There was a warm 20-ingredient salad from Hokkaido, beautifully plated in a style that recalled the classic dish by French chef Michel Bras, gargouillou. Five dots of sauces accompanied sesame, beetroot, spinach, lemon peel and Japanese prune.

A stunning foie gras was also part of the menu. It was rightly a small portion, especially coming in the middle of a 10-course menu, but was one of the best I can recall anywhere, thanks to a sweet crust which reminded of a crème brûlée, flavoured with notes of citrus from sudachi zest and sliced grapes.

Ebi shrimp were the star of a light risotto served with broth, followed by a palate cleanser of grapefruit sorbet and wasabi, then the main course of perfectly cooked beef with peppercorns and a creamy potato gratin. To finish the technically excellent dinner, a remarkably light soufflé delicately flavoured with Earl Grey. Tasting menus run from 9,000 to 15,000 yen.

With memorable dinners like these, it’d be no surprise if Tokyo’s Michelin quota increases still further.

Sushi Shin by Miyakawa, Mandarin Oriental Tokyo, 2-1-1 Nihonbashi Muromachi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 103-8328 Tokyo, tel: +81 (3) 3270 8634;  mandarinoriental.com/tokyo/nihonbashi/fine-dining/restaurants/japanese-cuisine/sushi-shin-by-miyakawa

Inua, 2-13-12 Fujimi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-8552, tel: +81 (3) 6683 7570; inua.jp/en

Motif, Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo at Marunouchi, 1-11-1 Pacific Century Place, Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-6277, tel: +81 (3) 5222 5810; fourseasons.com/tokyo/dining/restaurants/motif_restaurant_and_bar

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