Bringing out the true character of each ingredient,
without adding unnecessary flavor.
The chef must never come before the ingredient.
What is
Kinari Ryori?
Every ingredient has a character of its own. My work is not to turn it into my own flavor. Through the knife, through heat, and through dashi, I draw out what the ingredient already holds. The purpose is not to display technique. What I want to remain with the guest is the ingredient itself. The chef must never come before the ingredient. Rather than adding flavor, I bring out the character that is already there. This is what Kinari Ryori means at Sassa.
Rather than creating a season,
I follow it.
I do not arrange ingredients to make a dish look seasonal. I use what is genuinely at its best at that moment. In spring: bamboo shoots, flowering sansho, wild mountain vegetables, cherry sea bream, and shellfish. In summer: ayu, eel, octopus, abalone, red sea urchin, and water shield. In autumn: matsutake, wild mushrooms, ginkgo nuts, chestnuts, new salmon roe, and roe-bearing ayu. In winter: crab, torafugu, wild duck, bear, turnip, and ebi-imo. The sea, the mountains, rivers and lakes, the fields, and the rice paddies each have their own seasons. I do not set out to express a season. I follow the ingredients that belong to it. That is how we think at Sassa.
