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Mochi-kujira whale in vinegar-miso dressing, chicken breast in steamed white-loin style with yuzu chili paste oil, pressed vegetables, arrowhead bulb balls, wax-glazed grilled shrimp, monkfish liver kintsuba, Omi konjac, whelk deep-fried in seaweed batter, lily bulb monaka, plum-flesh swirl, layered egg

As for the mochi-kujira in vinegar-miso dressing, whale is rarely used these days because of the whaling ban, but since it's a nostalgic ingredient…

Braised Fruit Pork Belly, Cheese-Baked '540' Potato

Bringing out the appeal of Hokkaido's overwintered vegetables Overwintered vegetables used: '540' potato, overwintered carrot, Kawanishi long yam…

• Serves 1 · ¥390

• Cook time 2 min

Turnip steamed dish, tilefish, mitsuba, ginkgo nuts, wood ear mushroom, shimeji mushroom, wasabi, silver sauce

This is a dish, somehow comforting, where guests enjoy steamed tilefish and turnip with a silver sauce poured over. Since we mainly serve tempura…

• Serves 1 · ¥975

• Cook time 30 min

Sea squirt with citrus dressing, shrimp with fennel dressing, surf clam hydrangea-style dressing, sansho herring, beef with egg-yolk dressing

This is the sashimi course. In place of the usual sashimi, I made a five-color namasu. It uses seafood, beef, and sanshō herring, a local dish of…

• ¥1,000

• Cook time 1 hr

Apple Gratin

This is a reimagining of Gunma Prefecture's local cuisine. This is a grilled dish. The Apple Gratin is an attempt to let guests eat the apple…

• Serves 1 · ¥540

• Cook time 1 hr

Molded ark shell, baby turban shell grilled with wakame, whiting sushi wrapped chimaki-style, Hakata-style duck white loin, pale-poached, dried shrimp and tomato, lightly marinated, sea bream roe jelly

This is the appetizers course. For the baby turban shell grilled with wakame, I bring out the color of the wakame and blend it in a mixer, then blend…

Kagoshima tea-leaf five-ingredient tofu dressing

This dish uses tea, one of Kagoshima Prefecture's proudest products — Kagoshima actually ranks first nationwide in tea output. Kagoshima tea is mild…

• Serves 3 · ¥300

• Cook time 30 min

Asari clams and rapeseed blossoms in mustard dressing, with lily bulb

As with the hamaguri clams, the key with asari clams too is not to overcook them, so they finish soft and tender.

Dual-purpose ingredient dish: puff-baked flat tofu skin

During the pandemic there was a period when ingredients were hard to come by, so I had to cook with whatever limited ingredients I had on hand. I'd…

• Serves 1 · ¥780

• Cook time 20 min

Eel Hot Pot

Throughout the year, our restaurant serves a hot-pot-style dish within the tasting menu that focuses on seasonal ingredients. This time it's a hot…

• Serves 1 · ¥1,000

• Cook time 1 hr

Pine-cone-cut tokobushi abalone simmered for long life, bamboo-cut celtuce pickled in miso, bottarga and cheese pressed in layers, miso-pickled plum-blossom tofu, layered plum-blossom salmon, two-ingredient herring roe roll, candied baby sardines with a kombu knot, layered crab and sea urchin fish-paste dumpling scored and grilled, crab cracker, monkfish liver rolled in sweet-pickled daikon, sake-lees plum blossom layered into an auspicious plum shape, debira dried flounder in a sweet vinegar marinade, kosode-style salmon grilled in a citrus-soy marinade, and mountain yam wrapped in paper and cooked

These are celebratory hors d'oeuvres. For the miso-pickled celtuce, we pickle it in Saikyo miso. Since the celtuce is peeled into one continuous thin…

Mamekozō pea purée, overnight-dried ayu, and lotus root aspic

For the Mamekozō pea purée, I used “Mamekozō,” a new Kagoshima variety of usui-mame pea, so guests could enjoy the taste and aroma unique to this…

• ¥450

• Cook time 40 min

Tateshina Beef Tenderloin, Deep-Fried with Aromatics

For the Tateshina beef tenderloin deep-fried with aromatics, I normally prepare Tateshina beef tenderloin — delicious even as a crossbred cattle — as…

• ¥850

• Cook time 20 min

Cherry blossom cheese mousse, crab and mountain yam roll, seared and chilled marinated tuna

This is a set of three appetizers. For the cherry blossom cheese mousse, I desalt salt-pickled cherry leaves and bring 200g of cream cheese to room…

Late-season pike conger and early matsutake teapot-steamed soup

A repeat-visit dish aimed at guests in their 20s and 30s. Why it resonates: the pairing of two luxury ingredients, pike conger and matsutake…

• Serves 1 · ¥550

• Cook time 1 hr

Shark fin and fish-paste dumpling, rolled in yuba — crab-and-chrysanthemum thin kuzu sauce, saimaki prawn, carrot, ginkgo-leaf cut, wood ear mushroom

When boiling the chrysanthemum petals, we add a very small amount of vinegar to stop discoloration and keep the color vivid. We bring out the ginkgo…

Enoki mushroom, seasoned and simmered

This is a dish under the theme of traditional heritage cuisine. Lately there has been less work involving the simmering station, so I'd like to focus…

• Serves 1 · ¥40

• Cook time 1 hr

Arrowhead bulb castella, monkfish liver monaka, persimmon and lily bulb, mole-shaped taro, barracuda kimono-wrap sushi, brandy-cured bottarga

This is an appetizer course. There is a tenth-night custom of making a straw gun from bundled straw and beating the ground with it to drive away…

• Serves 200 · ¥250

• Cook time 2 days

Tempura (Rice with Soy-Marinated Ikura, Tai [Sea Bream] and Cherry-Blossom Dōmyōji-Mushi, Iburi-Gakko Potato Salad with Colorful Akita Vegetables, Snow Crab Tomo-Ae Kinuta-Maki, Aigamo Duck Skewer with Egg-Yolk Soy Sauce and Sansho)

For the tai and cherry-blossom dōmyōji-mushi, the dōmyōji rice flour is reconstituted in dashi and dyed cherry-blossom pink, making for a dish with…

Barracuda grilled Matsumae-style, abalone dressed with liver, shrimp in crystal aspic, duck steamed in wine, goldfish-shaped rice-flour dumplings, chilled asparagus garnish, watermelon and small melon

This is the appetizer course for a summer set menu. For the Abalone Liver Ae, after cleaning the abalone, I gently simmer it in the shell. I press…

• Serves 1 · ¥1,050

• Cook time 2 hr

Kisu and Summer Vegetable Temari

This kisu (Japanese whiting) and summer vegetable ball-shaped dish is beautiful to look at as well; I thought that combining kombu-cured kisu with…

• ¥590

• Cook time 45 min

Oyster, Nanzenji-style, with smoked oyster, grilled scallion, and wasabi

Enjoy the umami of oysters, a taste of winter. By adding oyster paste to sieved tofu and grinding it together, the oyster's characteristic odor…

Sea bream and aromatic vegetable hakusen-age, chia seed dressing

This time, on 'fried dishes,' I learned from chef Namai (Aoyama's 'Hana Michō'). This time I take up 'hakusen-age.'

Agedashi sesame tofu

Even a veteran master chef can encounter dishes whose cooking method is impossible to grasp just by hearing about it or seeing it once. This Pro's…