Ishikawa

respiración

レスピラシオン

Experience Ishikawa’s unique terroir and traditions at respiración – a charming story of three childhood friends who vowed to one day reunite to create a restaurant after setting off on their individual paths to become chefs. It is modern Spanish featuring Ishikawa ingredients in a setting created by the many hands of local artisans and architects. From producer to middleman, from suppliers to chefs, from kitchen to guests, breath cycles through produce and artistic creations, and the chefs at respiración wish to pass on the life energy of every aspect.

A standalone restaurant amid Kanazawa’s attractive cityscape, respiración is not far from the Omicho Market and the Higashi Chaya geisha district with its atmospheric teahouses. The traditional Kanazawa wooden structure previously served as a bank, and the architects preserved as much of the original exterior and interior as possible. Contrasting with the deep-colored wooden slats across the front of the building is a small gold square with the restaurant’s name by the entrance. You can catch a glimpse of the nimble, energetic chefs working in their white chef coats in the open kitchen as soon as you walk in. But guests are first guided to a waiting room in the storehouse deep behind the restaurant before being invited to a spacious table within the restaurant proper.

A trio of chefs who all worked diligently on their culinary careers before reuniting to form the company Hife now share the load of their various businesses with one in charge of the restaurant respiración, one in charge of the bar, comer, and the third is the chef at Piso, selling specialty goods.

Modern Spanish featuring Ishikawa ingredients

Without question, respiración is worth the trip to Kanazawa. To dine here is to rediscover the distinctive and innate flavors of an enormous range of produce, from earthy vegetables to sumptuous seafood and local game. The tasting course is built on a modern Spanish base, thanks to the careers of Chefs Ume and Yagi, who worked at Michelin-starred restaurants in Barcelona, but is a gastronomic experience that expresses the terroir of Ishikawa Prefecture. The fifteen dishes or so each contain ingenious and innovative touches, but Chef Ume is quick to note the lack of unusual ingredients and unconventional combinations – everything here is about familiar tastes. The emphasis is on freshness, texture and intrinsic flavor. The specialty takes local amaebi shrimp, from head to tail, and fashions it as a traditional Japanese confection. The innards are worked into a translucent sheet that envelops the flesh marinated in salt koji. The shell and tail are chopped finely and mixed with eggs to make a crispy tart base for wonderful aromatics and a texture contrast to the luscious shrimp. Gently woodfired surf clam is dressed in a butterbur shoot sauce and served with leaves from the wasabi plant, wild mountain vegetables, and iwanori seaweed.

Perfectly plump Ishikawa oysters are married with the green freshness of snap peas and Ajoblanco soup with edible chrysanthemum oil and puree. Kaga lotus root is blended with local Kanazawa Rokujo barley to form the chewy deliciousness of renkon-mochi in an umami-rich broth extracted from local Agishi turkey. The soup contains slippery nameko mushrooms, earthy burdock root, and the citrusy notes of lemongrass. Breast and thigh meat and the gizzards of turkey lovingly raised over two years are formed into dumplings and wrapped in wild wasabi greens foraged in the Hakusan area in a play on the Spanish pork skewers called pinchos montunos. A simple tomato is the palate cleanser, marinated in homemade vinegar and topped with a sasanqua flower. The rich-tasting paella allows the chef to highlight the incredible flavor and umami of Kano-gani snow crab and its innards, served with an aioli sauce. After finishing the last bite, you will be thrilled to hear you can have seconds.

Other courses may include wood-roasted tilefish or monkfish and wild game meat dishes such as local bear deer and wild boar. The produce deliveries and climate on the day determine the ingredients, cooking methods, combinations, and order of service. It is all about what foods and textures our bodies want us to partake in that season. You can always be certain there will be a stunning dessert and delectable petit fours to complete the meal.

INGREDIENTS
Over the past seven years, the chefs at respiración have continued to build a tight-knit network of suppliers, ensuring transparency and delivery of the taste of the seasons and Ishikawa’s terroir that people seek. These local producers provide seafood, herbs and farmed and wild mountain vegetables. They include individuals like Yosuke Nakata and Tomoko Uchida and farms like Kiyoshi Noen, Angato Noen, Noto Taka Farm, Kasama Noen and Horita fruit farm. respiración’s connections extend to the Noguchi Naohiko Sake Institute, Hasumidayori, Agishi Turkey, magazzino38, Kanbayashi Kanazawa Chaho tea specialists, Satoyama Biboroku, Iwata Shoten, Kakuhana Yutaka and Notojima Kaien – both makers of sea salt – Jufuku Suisan, which ensures the best seafood catches, and some of Japan’s freshest spring water from Koboike.

The sommelier Toshihiro Kanemura takes the team to further strength with his pairing selections of primarily French wines but also featuring wines from Spain and around Japan, most notably Hokuriku and even Noto Peninsula wines like the wonderful Says Farm. Pairing courses of five or even glasses are available, in addition to wines by the glass, beers, original cocktails and soft drinks.

CHEF

Tatsuro Ume

Tatsuro Ume was born in Tokyo in 1980 but moved to Ishikawa Prefecture while still in nursery school. During his elementary school days, Ume became friends with fellow owners Keisuke Yagi and then Yusuke Kitagawa after he moved to their school from Mie Prefecture. Ume never contemplated becoming a chef, but while working part-time at a washoku eatery, the owner/chef told him he had a natural talent for cuisine and thus began his journey to become a chef. He joined Sumida, a restaurant in Ryogoku, home to the Kokugikan national sumo arena. Aged 27, he left for Barcelona, where his days were split between language study and work at a Japanese restaurant. He took a punt and asked one-star Michelin restaurant SAUC to take him on, and they did, allowing him to polish his skills further. He comments on how fortunate he was with his timing there. After returning to Japan, Ume worked at Tokyo vars and restaurants until he joined forces with his childhood friends Yagi and Kitagawa to create a company called Hife. They opened respiración in 2017, where Ume serves as head chef in charge of cuisine and training the next generation of chefs.

Keisuke Yagi was born nearby in Kanazawa in 1979. During his school days, his obsession was basketball, and he later got into music and fashion. He worked at City Hall after graduating, but somewhere, something sparked his passion for food, and he left for Tokyo to pursue the life of a chef. A year at a café in Higashi-Ginza and then four years at a Kanazawa Italian restaurant gave him his start before he was drawn back to Tokyo and a Spanish restaurant where he spent 12 years. At 27, he left for Spain and joined then two-star, now three-star Michelin AbaC for two years of training. After his homecoming, Yagi worked as a chef at Spanish bar Blanco for four-and-a-half years. He co-founded Hife in 2016, then opened the Spanish restaurant respiración in 2017, followed by the Spanish bar comer in 2018. He also heads Piso, a brand he launched during the pandemic to sell Basque cheesecake and other treats.

Yusuke Kitagawa was born in Mie Prefecture in 1979. He was drawn to the restaurant industry through his love for food and undertook five years of washoku training before switching to The Kagurazaka French/Italian favorite AGARIS. After six years there, he spent a further six years at a Spanish restaurant, solidifying his culinary skills in both Japanese and European cuisine. He co-opened respiración in 2017 and is currently the chef at the Spanish bar comer.

VISION
Tatsuro Ume feels very strongly that only the occupation of a chef has the power to move all five senses and make people happy. That is why there is no joy in simply maintaining the status quo. He wants to make respiración a space where the staff moves together on one vector in one direction. He hopes young chefs branch out to go independent, glad they trained here first and with the accomplishment of chefs in regional Japan forever imprinted in their minds. Absent are any plans to expand domestically or overseas. This threesome’s gaze is firmly fixed on weaving together Ishikawa Prefecture’s rich natural landscape and the passion of producers and artists to forge an even better future.

Keisuke Yagi wants to run with the others for the next 20 years. Never content with the present, he is continually working to gain the recognition of critics at the Michelin Guide and Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants. Chefs deserve the respect of young people, and he wants to show them, including his own children, how he is constantly striving for something bigger.

TABLEWARE

From pottery and porcelain to glassware, chopsticks, vases and even washi implements, everything you see, smell and touch at respiración has been made in Ishikawa Prefecture. The artists are cherished so deeply by respiración’s owners that, as with the ingredient producers, they wish to name them all: Kazumi Tsuji, secca, Yuichi Takemata, Kiyoko Morioka, Masaki Kusada, Kihachi, Mutsumi Yamada, Shieri Hoki, Aya Yuki, HANASAKA, FUTAGAMI, Horihashi, Namika Nakai, Kazu Fujita, Eriko Fujimaru, and Yoshiko Takanashi. Items have also been sourced through lacquerware specialists Gato Mikio Shoten and Japanese paper artisans Kanazawa Futamata Washi, and Noto Hi Bakara supplies cypress essential oils and waters. The trio of chefs is always excited about new encounters and incredibly passionate about sharing the charms of Ishikawa more broadly and deeply.