Chef Ishibashi truly values the many people instrumental in creating this space, including the suppliers of fresh ingredients and tableware and his former master, who gave him the foundation as a sushi chef. His chef’s course is about showing guests the best the local Kyushu waters have to offer. It opens with the chef’s signature dish of tender simmered octopus. Fished in the Genkainada Straits of Kyushu, the chef massages it with salt and then freezes it for one day, a process passed down by the chef’s master that breaks down the fibers to tenderize the flesh. What follows is a series of appetizer dishes like Oita Prefecture thread-sail filefish dressed in liver sauce, made by cleaning and passing through a sieve for a smooth, velvety texture.

Ten to twelve pieces of nigiri and maki come next before the meal closes with a belly-warming soup and the rolled egg omelet – a luscious mouthful with a cheese-cake-like texture containing umami-rich pastes made from kurumaebi shrimp and scallops. For the nigiri, the fish is prepared either fresh, rested or cured to maximize flavor and texture. Fukuoka sea bream is cured with salt to extract moisture over two days. A 60-kilogram Goto Island bluefin tuna is brought to the restaurant and rested for three days before service. The luxuriant tuna appears in the course twice in different forms, both unforgettable. Gizzard shad from Amakusa, Kumamoto, is cured in salt and vinegar for one day. In contrast, the horse mackerel from Munakata, Fukuoka, is served fresh, not cured.

For all, Ishibashi declares that 80% of the flavor comes down to the rice ovals lying beneath the fish. He chooses rice with conspicuous grains, umami and sweetness, to which he adds a blend of two akazu red vinegars. The ovals gently fall apart, having imparted their warmth to the seafood, melting the fat for the perfect dreamy mouthful every time. While Kyushu is often associated with sweet soy sauces to pair with seafood, Ishibashi’s nikiri is a reduction of kombu and bonito dashi, soy sauce and mirin, with a sharp, distinctively Edo-style flavor that he feels is in perfect balance with the seafood.

Local Kyushu sake and others from around Japan share equal space in the beverage lineup, so it’s a great chance to share your preferences and let the chef choose the perfect libation for you.

INGREDIENTS
All the seafood served here is freshly fished in ocean waters surrounding Kyushu and supplied by a sole-trading fishmonger in the neighborhood. Another lesson from Ishibashi’s master that has been put into practice here is a focus on using local ingredients. While all exquisite, spring means especially delicious white-flesh fish and shellfish, and in summer, it’s the akauni sea urchin. Autumn brings sumptuous Japanese Spanish mackerel and modorigatsuo — the bonito returning south to spend the cold winter months in warmer southern waters. Sumptuous white and blue fish varieties abound in winter.

The rice ovals that carry all those delicious seafood ingredients are made from a variety called Tajima Muraoka-mai, completely hand-planted and grown in the terraced rice fields of Hyogo Prefecture. The grains are full and bulbous, and the flavor experience is one of rice’s innate sweetness. They are flavored with Yokoi Brewery’s Kohaku and Yohei red vinegar, which are made from the finest sake lees in eastern Tokyo.