The focus of every course at Nikuryori Oka is steak from aged beef carved from the bone just before cooking. For both lunch and dinner, guests choose three varieties of wagyu to taste and compare. They are all cooked over charcoals but with different methods and timing based on origin, number of years of rearing, and extent of aging.

Prior to that crescendo, the chef treats guests to a wonderfully modulated meal that in the thirteen-dish Premium Course starts with an appetizer of seasonal ingredients, like Hokkaido-grown white asparagus topped with a generous helping of caviar. This is followed by consommé made from Hokkaido organically farmed beef, and a hassun dish showcasing fresh seafood delicacies like Omura, Nagasaki uni sea urchin and Maizuru torigai cockle among an array of vegetables, served with a sakura shrimp and strawberry sauce.

Next are two dishes using Omi beef from Shiga Prefecture: fresh beef tongue sashimi served with simmered kombu; and exquisite beef tartare seasoned with onions cooked in warmed beef lard. The chef serves a beef cutlet as homage to the deep-fried skewered kushikatsu typically found in casual eateries in the Kansai region, before taking you on a brief journey to his Italian origins, perhaps with a pasta.

Then it is time to devour your three steak choices chargrilled to perfection. The lavish course comes to a close with rice cooked in a traditional pot and, in summer, a dessert of Miyazaki mango with a fresh milk mousse. It is the ultimate in wagyu cuisine for both lovers of beef and those who think they have tried it all and wish to be wowed anew by beef. Perhaps only here can you select from six or more types the three steaks that appeal most and have them cut from the bone and cooked right before your eyes.

Beneath the steak, charcoals glow at a gentle 30-40 degrees, and the chef tends lovingly to the precious pieces of beef, moving and occasionally resting them until they reach perfect doneness.

You might like to accompany your course with a wine pairing of primarily French wines, or maybe you prefer to sample some sake from the chef’s excellent collection.

INGREDIENTS
The focus is without doubt on securing the safest, best, most delicious beef: A5 marbled wagyu, lovingly raised lean meat, and Gibeef from cattle that graze freely in vast pastures of Hokkaido. The latter is one of very few organic beef varieties in Japan, and its name combines beef with gibier – French for wild game meat – showing the wild and natural context of the cattle’s upbringing.

The person Chef Oka trusts for all of this Yoshinobu Shinho, head of Sakaeya butcher shop and a man who knows everything there is to know about meat. Born in Kyoto in 1961, the son of a butcher, he went independent at age 27. He travels the full span of Japan – from Okinawa to Hokkaido – searching for the best wagyu and then perfectly aging it. Not influenced by brand names or ranks, Shinho is famous for his aging and other techniques that prove the value in cows who have already calved. Shinho has created a network with producers nationwide and his products include Hokkaido Gibeef, Brown Swiss raised in Okayama Prefecture, and Akagyu raised in the wide-open pastures of Kumamoto by Tokai University students.

Fresh seafood and vegetable selections are made after detailed discussions with head chef Yuki Sato. Japanese cockles called torigai come from Maizuru, Kyoto, white asparagus from Hokkaido, and cheese from Yoshida Dairy Farm in Okayama Prefecture. The scrupulousness continues right through to seasonings, including one called hishio, a semi-solid mash that is the ancestor of soy sauce.