Sushi Yuu

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Sushi Yuu, discreet sushi bar defined by quality.

Daisuke Shimazaki cradles in his hands two giant shrimps, just boiled and ready to serve. “Yesterday they were swimming in the ocean,” he says, his voice hushed, poised to reveal a secret. “Fresh from northern Japan. The best in the world… maybe.” That phrase is heard frequently at Sushi Yuu, Shimazaki’s family-run restaurant. His sea urchin and his fatty tuna are also “the best in the world… maybe” – although his confident tone of voice infers that there is, in fact, no ‘maybe’ about it. Shimazaki’s late father, Shojiro, opened Sushi Yuu in 1972 in a distant suburb, later moving his shop to central Tokyo. His wife – Shimazaki’s mother – still helps from behind the scenes, bottling her annual batch of plum wine, or helping to pickle the ‘gari’ ginger so adored by regulars. The son was initially reluctant to follow in his father’s footsteps. The family’s restaurant was close to the bars and nightclubs of Roppongi – a neon-lit playground for high-rolling businessmen. Young Daisuke wanted a life on the other side of the counter. “But it turned out I was a terrible businessman,” he says. Within a year, he was in the kitchen, watching his father work. “He rarely spoke – it was a case of look and learn. That was the way back then.” Shimazaki knows that a chef is only as good as his ingredients. To get his hands on the best fish, he depends on a network of traders, each of them a specialist – in tuna, squid, or sea urchin. He visits them at the fish market every morning. “If there’s something special coming in, they’ll call to give me a head’s up,” he says. “But I still need to see things with my own eyes.” Shimazaki’s sushi reflects his personality: it is uncomplicated and generous. His preparations are simple, his cuts are large, and his rice has bite. A giant Hokkaido oyster is his recommended starter when they are in season. Always on the menu is his father’s signature ‘himono’ –mackerel, rigorously salted, dried in the open air, and grilled until its buttery juices begin to ooze. In place of dessert, expect a slice of ‘tamagoyaki’ omelette – sweet, and with a hint of citrus. Shimazaki balances his dedication to his craft with other passions outside the kitchen – fast cars, fine whiskeys, and the occasional round of golf. A confident English speaker, he converses with his customers from all over the world as dexterously as he creates their meals. “If people want to stay here talking and drinking until the small hours, they’re very welcome,” he says. And with only one sitting per evening, at Sushi Yuu there is no need to watch the clock.

Sakana Bar Ippo

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Sakana Bar Ippo - Fish & Sake Bar. Fish and sake served to the sound of rock ‘n’ roll.

Silence is rare at Sakana Bar Ippo, a casual fish and sake bar along a quiet side street in Ebisu. On most nights it’s packed by 8pm, the air crowded with a cacophony of chatter, clinking glasses, and bursts of laughter. Before the guests begin trickling in at 6pm, owner Masato Takano starts making a playlist for the evening – a little vintage Rolling Stones, some Beatles tunes, maybe something by the Smiths, then the Stone Roses. Takano, who writes songs and plays the piano and guitar, wanted to be a musician when he was growing up. But he made a calculated decision to pursue a safer career, and spent eight years working as a stock analyst. Now in his forties, he still peppers his conversation with references to risk and probability. “Succeeding as a musician is a narrow possibility, so I went to university and studied economics,” he explains, modestly adding that his specialist subject was investment theory. But childhood dreams die hard, and after spending much of his twenties managing assets, Takano knew he wanted to do more than just make money. By age 30, he’d saved enough to start a small business. To this day, he relishes the moment he told his boss he was quitting finance to open an izakaya. It was the many evenings he spent in the Tsukiji district, unwinding with friends over sake and freshly caught fish, that gave him the idea for Ippo. “I really appreciated those moments after work,” he says. “I started watching the guys working in the restaurants, looking at what they were doing. Sometimes I’d buy fish at the market to take home and experiment with.” Ippo’s menu changes depending on what’s on offer fresh at the market. It can include sashimi, grilled fish, even oysters when they’re in season. There is also a selection of specialties, such as Satsuma-age, a variety of fishcake from Kyushu, Japan’s southernmost main island. In Takano’s recipe this is uniquely light and fluffy, a texture onomatopoeically described on the menu in Japanese as ‘fuwa-fuwa’. Regulars at Ippo order the ‘aji no namero’, a fine mince of raw horse mackerel, ginger, miso, and herbs that pairs brilliantly with sake. The name namero, which literally means ‘to lick’, implies the delicacy is so tasty that customers end up cleaning the plate themselves. Although his Ippo version uses mackerel, Takano based the dish on his grandmother’s recipe for a meal of raw squid. To chop everything together, he uses two cleavers in a rapid, steady tapping motion that adds a staccato rhythm to the aural mayhem. “Music is still very important to me,” Takano says, selecting a Tom Waits track on his computer as another customer shouts an order across the bar. “But this… This is my soundtrack.”

Honmura-an

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Koichi Kobari, Family-recipe soba noodles, served with New York flair.

When Koichi Kobari abruptly closed his much-loved New York soba restaurant Honmura-an, food bloggers broke the news like they were announcing a death. But the Big Apple’s loss was Tokyo’s gain: Kobari now runs an equally successful restaurant in the heart of Roppongi. Honmura-an New York was the first top-class soba restaurant outside Japan. Opened in 1991 and closed in 2007, it won the favour of SoHo locals, New York foodies, and a smattering of celebrities. It wasn’t the first time the Kobari family changed the history of soba cuisine. In the 1960s, Koichi’s father, Nobuo, was one of the first to turn a common fast food into refined cuisine, milling top-quality buckwheat on the premises and paying keen attention to design and décor. Tokyo’s middle class couldn’t get enough of it. Koichi, at the time a headstrong, independent young man, had no intention of being part the family’s noodle business. He moved to California to study, and later took a job as a management consultant. He was living the American dream. “But all the time, I had this nagging feeling,” he recalls. “Then one day, my father came to visit.” Nobuo had an idea. It was the heady era of the bubble economy. Mitsubishi had just bought the Rockefeller Center. Anything seemed possible. Nobuo wanted to open a restaurant for the planeloads of Japanese businessmen doing deals in New York. And he wanted Koichi to run it. “He was smart,” says his son. “He always wanted me to be part of the family business, but he knew I had to do it my own way.” Kobari ran Honmura-an New York for 16 years, using buckwheat flour from the Japanese countryside and chefs sent on rotation from Tokyo. The decision to close was an emotional one. Koichi’s father had passed away and it was time to return home. In Tokyo, he left his sister to run the main restaurant in Ogikubo, while he took charge of the less-famous Roppongi branch. The same designer he had used in New York soon replaced its traditional fixtures and fittings with a modern interior. His Japanese chef from SoHo came too. Today the soba noodles are still made to the Kobari family recipe, while contemporary side dishes and seasonal specials – grilled pork and apples with spring onion miso sauce, for example, or tender Hokkaido squid with ginger – add a sense of culinary adventure still rare on most soba menus. “It has been six years, but we still have a few parties from New York every night,” says Kobari, visibly moved by his customers’ loyalty. “It’s flattering, it’s overwhelming, it makes me remind myself every day to be thankful. And I think my father would be proud.”

Kaleidoscope Mukashi-kan

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Miti Araki, Kaleidoscope Mukashi-kan, Shopkeeper

The literal translation of the Japanese word ‘mangekyou, ’10,000 blossom mirror’ is such a perfect description of kaleidoscopes that, according to the owner of Japan’s first specialty shop selling them, “Japanese people commonly believe they invented them.” Indeed, if the country feels like a natural home for mementos like these then, rich with nostalgia, refinement and quiet romance, Miti Araki’s store suggests it is so. Located in Azabu-Juban, a village-like corner of central Tokyo, Kaleidoscope Musashikan has been in business for more than two decades. Back when she opened it, Araki was a recently divorced mother taking care of her daughter, Kiki. “I started to see the world through my little girl’s eyes,” Araki says, recalling moments they spent looking through a magnifying glass or playing with a mirror. “That act of becoming absorbed in something was vital. I had no idea how or what, but I knew I wanted to open a shop based on looking at things.” Kaleidoscopes were actually invented in the early 1800s by Scottish scholar Sir David Brewster, and soon enchanted the European upper classes. But before Araki opened her shop, all that was available in Japan were cardboard tubes of coloured plastic beads found at souvenir stands. She asked a friend in New York to visit a kaleidoscope specialist retailer there and send as many of them back to Japan as her savings would allow. Before long she had refashioned the café where she worked to become Kaleidoscope Mukashi-kan. The made up word mukashi-kan means ‘hall of the past’, and Araki’s shop feels like it could be the setting for a children’s fantasy, with storybook furnishings, a wall painted like the sky, and a shop assistant wearing a natty pink jacket. A sculpture outside shows the legs of a man appearing to fall into the unknown, and inside, every shelf and table is crowded with kaleidoscopes. The simplest model is the open-ended teleidoscope that multiplies whatever it’s pointed at, while others create infinite patterns using spinning wheels, sliding vials of liquid and glitter, or myriad tiny objects, such as microscopic seashells. Those with sleek brushed stainless steel exteriors are made in Japan; the detail of what is in the eye of the beholder is dazzling, thanks to viewing chambers filled with abstract flakes of exposed colour film. Araki won’t make recommendations, saying choosing one is intensely personal. “It depends as much on what’s inside the person holding the kaleidoscope as what’s inside the instrument,” she says. Indeed her own experience of kaleidoscopes has changed. Where once they stimulated her, in the worrying days after the 2011 earthquake, they became cathartic. “I believe every time you peer into a kaleidoscope, you see something different,” she says. “But then, shouldn’t that be true of almost everything in life?”

Utsuwa Kenshin

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Utsuwa Kenshin, Tiny trove of budding ceramic artistry.

Most people lucky enough to have a single-minded passion are born that way. They make a natural decision to dedicate their lives to food, fashion or design. However, for Kenshin Sato, owner of a beautiful Japanese ceramics shop so bijou it must be the world’s smallest, the tale of becoming an expert curator in his field is one of serendipity. “When I graduated from school I had no idea what I wanted to do,” says Sato. “I was flicking through the job ads and found one that sounded promising. It was walking distance from home and I didn’t need to wear a suit. I applied, and got the job.” The then-22-year-old began working for a company that designed table settings for photo shoots. Over the next decade, he came into contact with ceramicists from all over Japan, and his vocation found him. After several years working at a ceramics shop, Sato had the knowledge and the network to set up on his own. All he needed was an affordable space in a good location. Again, fate stepped in. “There was a ceramics shop here before me and I knew the owner. I was visiting one day, and I told him: ‘I want to open my own shop.’ He replied, ‘Well, I want to move mine.’ So I took over the space, just like that.” From the beginning, Sato knew he wanted to focus on emerging talent. And with a size of just 3.5 tsubo in Japanese terms (less than 12 square metres, or 130 square feet), he only has space for the very best. Most of the artists he works with are in their twenties or thirties, producing pieces that combine timeless wabisabi (elegant simplicity) with hints of youthful rebellion. They include the playful-yet-melancholy works of Kazuhiro Katase, whose bold shapes and colours are softened with an unnerving sense of decay; Chie Kobayashi, whose ethereal white bowls look as if they might blow away in the wind; and the rugged aquamarine cups of Asato Ikeda, reminiscent of a calm ocean dangerously awakened. “I could never be a ceramics artist myself. I don’t have that sort of patience!” says Sato, in a confession of sorts from a man who at first appears serene yet self-confident. “But this is the next best thing.” Private buyers are Sato’s main customers, although he recently found himself on the radar of some of Tokyo’s most remarkable restaurants, including Den, whose chef shares Sato’s taste for classy irreverence. Sato works alone – and likes it that way – so because space is limited he often holds special exhibitions at other locations, during which he usually closes the little shop. His ambitious side wants to take the next step and move to a larger showroom. But something is holding him back. “I go back and forth,” he says. “It would be nice to show bigger pieces and more artists, but things would also be a lot more complicated.” So for now, Utsuwa Kenshin stays small. Until fate … Read More

Visvim

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Visvim, An enduring vision built from nomadic inspirations. Hiroki Nakamura, the founder and creative director of Visvim, a brand.

Hiroki Nakamura flicks through back catalogues of his old collections as if they are personal photo albums: Native American patterns he found on a trip to the United States; colour palettes from the monasteries of Tibet; rare dyes from a remote island in southern Japan. “This business has literally been a journey for me,” says Nakamura, the founder and creative director of Visvim, a brand that has earned a deserved reputation for quality, durability, and authenticity. In its creation, Nakamura has taken inspiration from all over the world – places he’s visited, people he’s met, and fabrics he’s held between his fingers. “To make good things, I have to start at the beginning – at the origin – with the raw materials. I cannot just add a logo to something that already exists.” The beginning for Visvim was 2000, when Nakamura quit his job working for an international snowboarding brand to make things of his own. The turn of the millennium was domestic Japanese fashion’s heyday, with hundreds of independent labels born in just a small swatch of Tokyo between Harajuku and Shibuya. “It was an exciting time,” Nakamura recalls. “Before that, it was always some businessman bringing an existing idea over from Europe or America. But we were part of a strong, home-grown movement that started in Harajuku.” For the first few years, Nakamura focused on shoes, which reflected his love of functional products. Visvim quickly became famous for its long-lasting, hand-sewn sneakers, and the brand grew organically to include denim, bags and womenswear. Nakamura’s Visvim store is called Free International Laboratory – or F.I.L. – a nod to his relentless, nomadic search for authentic inspiration. When he decided to create designs inspired by the boots of indigenous tribes in Lapland, for example, he visited a Sami village three hours by snowmobile from the nearest town in Norway. Another project involved taking handmade yarn that was naturally dyed by artisans in Japan to a Navajo reservation in New Mexico to be woven into cloth. In every collection, there are things that remain limited editions simply because of the way they are produced. One such product was a bag made from grapevine hand-woven by women in Showamura, a remote village in Fukushima Prefecture, northeast Japan. Unlike factory production designed to churn out lines of identical products, each grapevine bag is made by a single person and is totally unique. That is not to say that Nakamura shuns modern manufacturing – on the contrary many Visvim products are mass-produced to meet demand. And besides, Nakamura is passionate about innovation. He describes the waterproof synthetic material Gore-Tex, as “the perfect textile,” (although, of course, the Gore-Tex in a Visvim jacket is first dyed by a Japanese craftsman using traditional indigo techniques). “The real work is actually done by bacteria, so the dye job is never completely perfect,” Nakamura explains. “But it’s incredible. It gives what is the ultimate modern product something of a history.”