The book “Hungry in Tokyo” was written with a deep joy. It was inspired by the gastronomic, sensory and intellectual pleasures of the Tokyo experience. It is based on observation and tasting. I almost completely avoid generalizations or theories, and the book remains a true travelogue, the story of an adventure, to the end.
Why did I decide to write about Japan?
The writing flowed as if I had been waiting for this moment my whole life. As if all my decades of gastronomic training, and all the knowledge and experience I had acquired in my life, were intended only to give me the tools necessary to savor Japanese cuisine – and to write about it.
I ate at fifty restaurants, from the high-end at 40000 yen ($360) per diner to 1000 yen and even less, and sampled twenty types of cuisine. There was not a single letdown! Give me another city in the world where you eat at 50 of its restaurants and don't get let down XNUMX percent of the time.
For decades, almost every time I flew, the plane landed at a French airport… and this is no joke. It is true that I visited other countries in Europe, Africa, and the US, but all together, including a youthful love for Italy, far fewer than the total number of years I spent in France, where I lived from the age of 13 to the age of 26. And later, I visited it dozens of times and dedicated eight books, a newspaper called "Here is France," and hundreds of articles to it, its spirit and its pleasures (and also to the negative aspects of its history).
After a decade of specializing in French cuisine in all its varieties and levels, and a good acquaintance with several other cuisines, I developed the desire to become acquainted with Japanese cuisine in Japan.
How do you approach Japanese gastronomy?
Japan is the empire of refinement. How do you approach Japanese gastronomy? As a member of a culinary culture French?
In South Africa, when I toured the wine regions, I was very surprised to find Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir vineyards in the same winery: to the French, each variety characterizes a different region. The first Bordeaux And the other is Burgundy. It's French vision at its best and in the pasture. But I decided to stick with it.
My experienced French palate, which has tasted the best there is in France and several other cuisines around the world, has proven itself. It allowed me to discern subtleties. Qualities. I couldn’t identify ingredients I didn’t know: Even in French cuisine, I don’t analyze a dish in detail – some are capable of that. I focus on the overall experience of the dish, flavors, colors, structure, textures, aromas, serving utensils and serving manners. In Japan as in France.
Access to culture is first and foremost through language. French is my second mother tongue, and therefore I am also a cultured person. FranceI have no clue about the Japanese language, and therefore Japanese culture is largely inaccessible to me. Like 99% of tourists in Japan, I am cut off from my roots.
I have no pretensions to understand another world at a month old. All I want is to experience, to experiment, to feel – and to tell. The constant efforts, at every meal, to find out what I am eating, in what cultural, seasonal, geographical, historical, religious context this or that product is served, whether on its own or with others or within a sequence of a meal, and why, and how – these were some of the attempts I made to understand a tiny bit of Japan's personality. Its refinement, its uniqueness and its flavor.
And in the meantime, it dawned on me with certainty, from kaiseki meals, and this is told later, that France is not the be-all and end-all of haute gastronomy. And this was a welcome enlightenment, not a break. Not that I didn't know this – but in Tokyo the proofs of this were received
There is no doubt, and Michelin Tokyo is proof of this, that French cuisine is the Japanese's favorite gaijin (foreign) cuisine. It also attracts young Japanese chefs, often to specialize in it in their country and in France.
How many Michelin-starred restaurants are there in Tokyo?
Below, from the Michelin Tokyo guide: 14 *** restaurants, 4 of which are French, compared to 9 in Paris, all of which are French. 54 ** restaurants, 14 of which are French (and two Spanish) – inParis Only 15, less than a third, one of them by a Japanese chef, but not by a Japanese kitchen. About 160 *, of which 34 are French and 10 are Italian – inParis 79. Including 9 restaurants serving foreign cuisines, including 3 Japanese.
In Paris, French cuisine is the star without foreign competition. In Tokyo, French cuisine occupies an important place at the top: in 2018, Tokyo had 50 starred French restaurants, a total of 68 stars. Which shows the enormous influence of French gastronomy in Japan – and also its quality when it is skillfully exported to a country so rich in wonderful raw materials. France considers the Japanese audience to be such a connoisseur of taste that it has an “ambassador” in Tokyo, a Japanese one, by the way, of French gastronomy.
Japanese-French partnership: Olivier Audus' restaurant
Olivier Oddos is a French chef born in Bordeaux. The connection between us was established by Jonathan Tsairy, who was sent to him for training by the Cordon Béla.
When he decided in his youth to become a chef, Olivier went to Jacques Lameloise in Chagny, Burgundy, a Michelin *** restaurant, and he still remembers the dish he enjoyed there – Poularde en Vessie, a classic of Burgundian cuisine, chicken cooked in a pig's bladder.
He worked in Paris as a cook, and in 2000 he came to Japan not to stay. “I was 29 years old, I had a desire to gain experience outside of France, to travel around the world. But I stayed in the first country I arrived in. I was offered a job teaching at the Cordon Bleu. Until then, I had never taught. I taught, in French, French cuisine, with the help of an interpreter and an assistant. The students were mainly female. An interesting experience.
In 2004, they opened a school in Cuba, and sent me to run it. It was a completely different experience. A city of 1.5 million inhabitants, a village, compared to Tokyo, between the sea and the mountain. A city from which it was easy to get out into nature. An adventure, to establish a school in a country whose language I still didn’t speak well. In 2007, I returned to Tokyo, as the director of the Cordon Bleu in the city. Another interesting experience, which included travel, events, team management, many different things.”
As he approached 40, married with children, he thought about the future. Teaching no longer interested him. He pondered the possibility that in retirement he would regret not opening his own restaurant. “I decided to retire from Cordon Bleu, and I hesitated between France and Japan. I chose Japan, namely Tokyo. It wasn’t easy. Life in Japan isn’t complicated, but it gets complicated the moment you want to do business as a foreigner.
They always tell you yes, yes, but when it comes time to sign a contract, there’s always a reason why they say it’s impossible. You need a Japanese partner. I found it. I managed to get a permanent resident visa, I found a place, things that boosted my self-confidence. We opened in 2009. Our location is not ideal, it’s quite sideways, an eight to ten minute walk from two metro stations.”
He founded the restaurant with his Japanese wife as equal business partners. In the meantime, they have amicably divorced, which allows them to continue their business partnership. He remarried, to the beautiful Aurélie from Normandy, and the couple has a child. Olivier has three children from two different women, who know each other and get along well with each other. A divorced woman who works at the restaurant in the evenings and a wife who works at the restaurant during the day. He is "tidy."
“We worked hard. In 2011, we almost closed because of the earthquake and tsunami, and especially the Fukushima disaster. We lost many customers. We had to work all week, without a day off, and we held on. Then, the situation stabilized, and in December 2013 we received a Michelin *. We have an international clientele, but most of the customers are Japanese.”
Dinner at Olivier's
Tsairi put me in touch with Olivier, because the current director of Cordon Bleu de Tokyo did not respond to my request for an interview and a visit to the school. He also did not respond after asking for details and receiving them. Olivier responded immediately. He tried to help me overcome difficulties and even took on the not easy task of obtaining two locations at Sushi Saito, and succeeded.
Olivier is a top-notch professional chef and bilingual. During the meal, he helped me a lot to understand what I was eating. He also graciously translated the uncomfortable questions I posed to Saito after the meal. Afterwards, I briefly interviewed Olivier, first at Sushi Saito itself, and then, when the next round of diners arrived and we were asked to leave, at a cafe.
After the short interview, he invited me to dine at his Michelin-starred restaurant, Le Olivier. Although I had decided in advance that French cuisine in Tokyo was outside the scope of the book, and only Pierre Gannier's restaurant would be included due to our long-standing friendship, I agreed immediately. He recommended that I come on an evening that was convenient for me, but all my evenings were booked, and I came at noon for an excellent tasting meal.
Again, as usual, there was some difficulty in locating the right alley. Three Japanese businessmen who had come out of a restaurant in another alley and did not recognize the Olivier, apologized that they did not know him. But without saying anything to me, they went out to look, came back to meet me, and led me to the entrance. Great, Olivier said, now they know him and maybe they will come.
The restaurant is full of French and Japanese people. We are in the "French Quarter" of Tokyo. It extends east of the Palace Garden - where the restaurant is located - and north of it. Le Olivier is a fifteen-minute walk from the Lugdunum restaurant, which is a "bouchon", a traditional restaurant in the style of Lyon. French people from the Lyon region living in Tokyo, like Grenoble-born Raphael Avenier, go there to experience a piece of their homeland abroad. Olivier is a ten-minute walk from the French Institute. Even at the nearest metro station, Ichigaya, there is a café called France de Vie. But, Olivier complains, his restaurant is an eight-minute walk from the metro, and some Japanese friends cancel a meal because it is “too far.” Spoiled.
The small restaurant has 25 seats, and two more at a small counter that looks out through a window into the small kitchen, where I was seated. There are five employees in the kitchen, Olivier, and four Japanese. There is no dishwasher. Everyone does everything. The area closest to the observation window is dedicated to appetizers, the central area to main courses, and the back area to desserts, and is staffed by a young Japanese pastry chef.
Between Nantes and Hokkaido: Olivier's Kitchen
The products he uses in his kitchen are mostly Japanese, but also French. For example, duck from Challans, south of the city. Nantes, blue lobster from Brittany, seasonal mushrooms that arrive fresh. "I've been in Japan for 18 years, it affects me and it's good that it's like that. We're lucky because we find excellent products here, but I'm definitely not a fusion person."
He gets his fish and seafood directly from Hokkaido, so the relocation of the fish market didn't really hurt him as much as it did others. And Japanese meat is several levels above French meat, even that which comes from regions specializing in beef farming, such as Charolais and other lesser-known cuts.
Access to Japan's wonderful products, their use according to the rules of French cuisine, and insistence on fresh French superfoods that have no equivalent in Japan, allow him to make excellent cuisine, French with different twists, for example in seasoning. The meal I had included quite a few local products, but each course was accompanied by a different French wine. Some of them I was unfamiliar with.
The adjustments were on target, except for one match. Since Orly left every bottle with me, I drank more than I should have, and it was fun. There's nothing to be done: French cuisine is my favorite, the most familiar and understandable to me. I grew up on it. If not from childhood, at least from adolescence to now.
It's good to go back to the origins of KKK Tokyo. Because in Ganier's restaurant, the cuisine is much more Ganier than purely French. Pierre's creative flight goes back to the Saint-Etienne period, where a guide was needed to understand each dish. For years, each dish at Pierre's has been a small meal served on several plates, and a guide is once again needed.
At Olivier, creativity exists but is moderate, the meal is like an anchor and not like wings, R. Ganier. An anchor is an excellent thing, from time to time.
What did I eat?
After a small appetizer, a complex dish – small snail ravioli, nothing more French than that, abalone, sautéed duck foie gras and a mushroom sauce seasoned with yuzu-kosho. Yuzu is a Japanese citrus fruit, and kosho is a spread made from yuzu, pepper and salt, which is allowed to ferment before use. Excellent.
The next dish, fresh cod fillet with a lime scent, on a risotto of épeautre, spelt, known as "the wheat of the Gauls," accompanied by a puree of "trumpets of death" (trompettes de la mort), autumn mushrooms that I love very much, and that arrive fresh from France - in Saint-Jacques sauce. Wonderful.
We moved on to the meat. Squares of entrecote meat of black Wagyu beef, pine nuts and… boiled celery root that is peeled inside and looks like a rose. The meat is great, the celery even better, I asked for extra. The red wine pairs well with the crushed pepper on the meat.
Olivier is right that a French meal cannot be complete without wine. He loves wine very much and his wine list, which I have read with admiration more than once, respectfully represents all the wine regions of France. At reasonable prices even for great wines. In the champagne section, not only the products of the giant companies known throughout the world, but also many representatives of "artisanal" wineries, known mainly to those who wander the wine roads of the Champagne region and to me, thanks to a friend named Gerard Boyer, who was the chef of Les Crayeres, a wonderful hotel in the city of Rennes, with a Michelin *** restaurant.
When I came to him, he would serve me champagne from small wineries, each with its own distinct character. While the large champagne houses are careful to maintain a consistent brand flavor year after year, and only in exceptional vintage years do they allow the terroir to express itself freely.
In a French restaurant, you can't do without it either. Cheeses. After seeing the venerable cheese platter circulating in the restaurant, I asked for three cheeses, a suitable wine, a baguette and butter to their surprise. They had not heard of my capacity for gastronomic journeys. And it was great. They make the excellent butter themselves. The desserts, cakes, ice cream, sauces, pâté, everything is homemade. They used to bake bread too, but they stopped. They buy it. There is no shortage of good baguettes in Tokyo.
Le Olivier is a restaurant that I can afford both in the evening and not during research. Lunch is much cheaper, but there is a tasting meal for 7500 yen. About 250 NIS. With a * completely justified in Michelin. Not cheap, but cheap. And very good value for the money I didn't pay, because I was invited.
The restaurant empties. And there's dessert, and coffee. At a French-Japanese table, a burly Frenchman speaks loudly. As if addressing his friends at the table. He simply feels at home. Me too. And all I can do is thank and praise him and take Olivier and Orly outside, for a photo in daylight.
I thought I would eat a little, because in the evening I had a kaiseki dinner waiting for me at Dan. But I couldn't resist the temptation. Still, I left feeling light, because the portions weren't large, and in the evening I naturally came to Dan hungry.
Olivier had to consider the market in which he operates. The menu and website are in Japanese and English, there is no French, and as with Gannier, this bothered me, because language is a much more important component than wine in French culture. And the wine on the menu is almost entirely French. He is considerate of the Japanese even during meal times, which start early. But as in France, you can relax in the restaurant after the meal is over. There are no rounds here like in an elite sushi restaurant.
My second visit to Olivier's restaurant
I returned to them on my second visit, with a specific mission: to eat a hunk of premium Japanese beef, mounted like in France, thick, medium rare, tender, not like fillet – tender and chewy. A cut you won't find in any restaurant, he said. Bavette, a butcher's cut. He eats it every Sunday at home.
With a lettuce salad seasoned like in France, and a selection of French cheeses. Everything was accompanied by a Chateauneuf de Pape wine, perhaps less suitable for drinking without food, but ideal to accompany the meat and cheeses. I enjoyed it very much. And through the window I watched the kitchen work again, which was carried out in exemplary order, under the guidance of a top-notch professional, Olivier. Who learned from the instruction. The price I paid: 17000 yen, about 560 NIS. Quite a bit.
Every year, they return to the sources, the stone from its quarry in the Bordeaux region, and the stone from its quarry in Normandy.
At Olivier's
4-1-10 Kudan, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
Phone: 03-6268-9933
Metro Ichigaya
Monday to Saturday Lunch 11.30-13.30 Closes 14.30. Dinner 18.00-21.30 Closes 23.30
Closed Sunday. Also the first Monday of each month and certain holidays
Want to read Hungry in Tokyo?
The book can be found at M.Nadley sells books Online, launch promotion in honor of the inauguration of a new emperor, 32 NIS