[Narrator] Born from the elaborate Zen Buddhist tea ceremonies of the 16th century,
the highly refined style of dining known as Kaiseki,
has evolved to become the ultimate expression of Japanese cuisine.
Kaiseki is a modern derivation of Cha Kaiseki or tea ceremony cuisine,
and an abbreviation of Kaiseki Ryori, meaning a multi-course meal originating from a tea ceremony.
Beyond the food itself, every detail of a multi-course Kaiseki meal
is artfully orchestrated to provide the diner with a total sensory experience.
From the elegant serving dishes to the subdued decor of the dining room,
to the meticulously landscaped garden that each diner views from their place at the table....
nothing about a Kaiseki meal occurs without thought or purpose.
The cuisine of Kaiseki is informed by several interrelated philosophical concepts
that were introduced by the 16th century tea master in philosopher Sen no Rikyū.
The one concept is "shun," which emphasizes using seasonal ingredients at the peak of freshness
and employing cooking methods that delicately accentuate the ingredients natural flavors.
Another concept is wabi-sabi, the aesthetic notion that there's beauty in nature
and that beauty is imperfect, impermanent and incomplete.
Another concept — "Ichigo Ichie" — essentially means "one meeting, one encounter in a lifetime,"
and it calls awareness to the perception that every experience is a once-in-a-lifetime event precious yet fleeting.
[Elizabeth Ando speaking] Every meal, every time people are planning a meal, enjoying a meal,
it's particular to that time and that place.
And I happen to be in Kyoto in April,
and so the food that I will be enjoying here, that I would be preparing here,
will be very specific to the fact that it's April and Kyoto.
Anyone wanting to give it a go needs to be mindful of where they are and when they're there.
[Narrator] The Kyoto restaurant Hyotei was once the gatekeepers house for the nearby Nanzenji Temple.
Hyotei served as a respite and a tea shop for traveling pilgrims before becoming a Kaiseki restaurant in 1837.
Yoshihiro Takahashi is the 15th generation chef of Hyotei.
Hyotei's meals are served in a warren of individual tea houses surrounded by verdant gardens maple trees
and a brook filled with colorful koi.
The central house with its thatched roof, tatami mat floors and paneled screens is more than three centuries old.
Greeting us in his busy kitchen, Chef Takahashi shows us the preparations underway for a traditional Kaiseki breakfast.
The first dishes to be served consists of Hyotei slow simmered eggs called Onsen Tamago,
snapper sushi hidden in a bamboo leaf,
Green Mountain peppers grilled with bonito flakes,
burdock wrapped with eel that's been grilled and glazed with a caramel like sauce....
....and grilled ayu, a type of river fish, served with lotus root pickles.
Finally were presented with asagayu, Hyotei's famous morning rice porridge
drizzled with a thickened soy sauce and a colorful variety of pickles.
Our next visit takes us to Chef Motokazu Nakamura, the sixth generation chef of kaiseki restaurant, Nakamura.
Once a disciple of Zen asceticism at Kyoto's Tenryu-ji Temple,
Chef Nakamura now focuses his concentration in the kitchen
where his cooking has earned the restaurant two Michelin stars.
Today, Chef Nakamura is eager to show us two special recipes:
Wagyu beef grilled with both miso paste and soy sauce,
and a white miso mustard and spring vegetable salad that's often prepared to celebrate the Japanese New Year.
To begin with, Chef Nakamura slices a spring vegetable called [...], blanched in water and soaked in flavored dashi.
Next the chef combines simmered white miso, sweetened rice wine, sugar, sesame paste,
and mixes this into the dressing for the salad.
To add some spice, the chef adds just a bit of Japanese mustard.
As a base for the salad, Chef Nakamura spoons some miso and mustard dressing into the bottom of a salad bowl.
Next, the [....] is placed in the bowl along with fresh bamboo shoots and Annatto, another fresh seasonal vegetable.
The flowering portion of the Annatto is added and finally some yellow bell peppers for color.
The dish is now ready to serve.
Next, the chef prepares thin slices of Wagyu beef marinated in both miso paste and soy sauce
and grilled over Japanese Binchotan charcoal.
Wagyu beef may be the finest beef in the world. It's certainly the most expensive.
Wagyu steaks from the regions of Kobe, Mishima and Ishigaki,
all sell for over $300 per pound in Japan.
Wagyu is highly prized because of its dense concentrated marbling of fat.
The beef's high fat content gives the meat a buttery rich flavor
and a melt-in-your-mouth tenderness that has to be tasted to be believed.
Binchōtan charcoal is Japan's traditional charcoal made from ubame oak.
Binchōtan burns longer and at a lower temperature than Western charcoal.
The remarkable quality about Binchōtan is that it doesn't release smoke or fumes, so it's ideal for table-side grilling applications.
The chef has marinated the first cuts of beef and soy sauce, mirin and yuzu peel.
The second cuts of beef are marinated in white miso and mirin.
The beef and miso marinade sits overnight while the beef in the soy sauce marinates for only two hours.
Chef Nakamura curls the meat onto skewers to make the finished dish more visually appealing to the diner.
He grills the Wagyu beef over the Binchōtan coals while telling us that it's important to cook at a lower temperature heat,
with a low flame so the beef reaches the ideal point of tenderness.
To balance out the richness of the beef,
The chef prepares a fresh salad of julienned cabbage, daikon carrots and daikon sprouts.
The dish is now ready to serve.
For another Wagyu beef recipe we meet up with Chef Murata at his three-star Michelin restaurant, Kikunoi,
to watch him prepare an elaborate kombu and salt crusted Wagyu beef fillet.
Chef Murata begins by seasoning a large fillet of Wagyu beef with a generous amount of salt.
He sears the fillet in a hot non-stick pan making sure to brown it on all sides.
To make the crust for the beef, Chef Murata combines egg whites and water and a large amount of sea salt.
The chef wraps the beef and kombu and then encases the beef in the salt mixture.
While the beef is cooking in a hot oven, Chef Murata moves on to make the two different sauces that will be served with the beef.
The first sauce is made by grinding sesame seeds in a ceramic mortar called a Suribachi.
To the sesame paste, he adds ponzu, a mixture of citrus juice and soy sauce.
The chef finishes the sauce with a little dash of Japanese mustard.
The next sauce uses Tamanegi onions — a type of mild onion.
The onions have been roasted in an oven for about 20 minutes to bring out their sweetness.
The onions are placed in a food processor and pureed until smooth.
The onion purée is transferred to a pan, where Moromi — the fermented leaves of soy sauce is added.
Then mirin a sweetened rice wine is added.
Slowly, the mixture is simmered and reduced.
A little ginger and lemon juice is added to finish the sauce at the end.
The finished sauces are ladled out into serving bowls and await the roasting filet.
When the beef comes out of the oven, the salt crust and kombu are removed.
The beef is then sliced.
Chef Murata places the beef and kombu back on top of the salt crust, which is now resting on a bed of fragrant pine needles.
Kunio Tokuoka is the third-generation chef of the restaurant Kitcho in Kyoto,
the most famous dining establishment in all of Japan.
At the age of 20, he began training under his grandfather, the restaurants founder,
and learned the basics of Japanese cuisine.
In 1995, he succeeded his father Koji Tokuoka, as the proprietor of the restaurant,
and in 1996, Kitcho was awarded three Michelin stars.
While respecting Japanese cooking traditions, Chef Tokuoka blends innovative culinary techniques
to express the diversity of Japanese cuisine.
Dining at Kitcho is a serene and private affair.
Dining parties are discreetly ushered to their own individual tatami rooms
with traditional low tables, each seat with a different view of the exquisitely landscaped gardens.
Every detail of the restaurant, from its elegant but understated decor, to its immaculate service,
is thoughtful and artistic.
Every dish is a highly creative work of sculpture,
presented on shiny black lacquer trays with gorgeously formed and painted ceramic plates,
some of which are more than 400 years old.
Japan's cuisine is otherworldly and at times intimidating.
But it's too delicious to ignore.
The rigors of the Kaiseki kitchen demand immaculate dashi,
but knowledge of this perfection shouldn't stifle your creativity.
Japanese cooking is inspiring,
giving us so much to savor and so much to learn.
[Traditional Japanese music playing]
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