IN THE UAE
Dubai’s newest Japanese restaurant has only 28 seats, and serves a very special form of traditional cuisine, writes Natalie Long
A hole-in-the-wall Japanese eatery next to Dubai Opera keeps it real – no California rolls here, thank you.
When you enter Kohantei, ducking amidst the fluttering noren curtains that hang at the doorway, you’ll be asked to take off your shoes. You’ll spy a few pairs of Japanese wooden platform sandals, but don’t try to put them on: This tiny restaurant – there are only 28 seats – wants you to explore the soul of kaiseki cuisine, from the tip of your tongue to the soles of your bare feet. In the front of house, overseen by Mika Ueda, the floors are covered with tatami mats, a springy, straw-like material that is strictly bare feet only; the walls are sliding paper frames and the tables and chairs are low to the ground. The kitchen, run by chef Hisao Ueda, Mika’s husband, is small and tightly packed with fresh ingredients that come directly from Japan twice a week, fruit and vegetables, fish and seafood, and whole – whole – Ozaki cattle, the showpiece of this restaurant, which opened late last year, tucked away next to Dubai Opera.
‘There were many fears when we started,’ Benjamin Ng tells me. He’s the founder of Kohantei, and approached Hisao three years ago, asking the chef to envisage what his dream restaurant would be – and then make it happen. ‘I mean, shoes off. How are [customers] going to take that? When you tell them kaiseki takes two hours, how are they going to take that? Then we found out people love it. They initially think two hours is long, but then they sit there for three and a half.’
Kaiseki is a meal that typifies much about the approach to life in the Asian nation. There’s refinement and respect for tradition, and references to culture and history through the ingredients used. The meal involves a number of small courses, usually following a certain order and cooked in a specific way – a simmered dish, a fried dish, a grilled dish, plus soup and pickles. Seasonality is key – hence the importance of the twiceweekly deliveries from suppliers that the team has personally cultivated relationships with back in Japan. So if it’s winter, and a certain fish or vegetable is at its best – and Hisao can get his hands on it – it’s on the menu.
Or rather, it’s not.
The dishes served change on an almost daily basis, so while there is an a la carte menu, it’s the multi-course meals – from six to eight – that exemplify the kaiseki style of eating. The menu consists only of a list of dishes – appetiser, soup, etc – and the ingredients are what is deemed best on the day (it’s best to book in advance, especially if you have allergies or are vegetarian – this style of food requires planning). One thing that is part of all the meals, however, is beef – a wagyu beef that’s even more exclusive than usual, because it’s halal.
There are few consumers of halal wagyu in Japan, and only one slaughterhouse that is certified halal. So if a UAE-based restaurant wants to serve halal wagyu, they have to buy the whole cow, and it’s in limited supply. ‘We cannot only buy tenderloin and striploin – the supplier in Japan can’t sell halal beef that’s not prime cuts,’ says Mika. The most popular kaiseki menu, the Dh1,155 Matsuri, features eight courses of exclusively Japanese beef, cooked in varying styles, from soup to sushi to a side-by-side presentation of four breeds of cow. Each grilled, melting piece of meat is not much bigger than half a deck of cards; the richness of the intensely fat-marbled beef (raw, it’s almost white) would make it impossible to eat as a large American-style steak. Other menus feature Australian wagyu alongside the Japanese; it’s much easier to source, but comes with its own flavour and texture profile.
The meat is from Ozaki, a revered cattle farmer based in Miyazaki prefecture, who struck out on his own, defying the Miyazaki wagyu beef association’s style; he’s now considered one of the best producers in Japan. Being a respected producer in Japan is a big, big deal. You don’t just buy their produce, you’re representing them.
‘All those plaques at the front of the restaurant?,’ says Benjamin. ‘Those are not awards or prizes. Those are merely permission to buy, process and sell a certain kind of produce – Ozaki beef for example. They will inspect me once or twice a year, and if they feel we are not doing their produce justice, they will stop selling to me. It’s bonkers!’ The attention to detail is in everything. ‘When I open a box of pears, it has eight pears in it, identical, lovingly wrapped,’ says Singapore-born Benjamin, who has long harboured a fascination with Japanese culture (he also owns a Japanese salon in DIFC). ‘There is an instruction card on the optimal way to store and serve the pears, and the optimal way to cut it. That’s what we do.’
Benjamin approached Hisao for the same reason I would have approached Hisao: He worked at Japanese restaurant Kisaku, and moved to Tomo, at Raffles Dubai, after Kisaku
‘We don’t have a dishwasher. Chef wants to wash the dishes because he wants to see how the plates come back’
closed; both restaurants are stars on the food map for Japanese expats looking for a taste of home, and nonJapanese looking for a menu that goes beyond California rolls. (The couple, who met in Dubai, still return to Tomo regularly to eat). Hokkaido-born Hisao is what every restaurateur (and diner) wants in a kitchen: Walking, talking, wagyu-beef-blowtorching authenticity.
‘I wasn’t looking for concepts or space, I was looking for people first,’ says Benjamin. ‘I claim no credit for this, I merely have the privilege of giving the form to chef’s dream. The most difficult part, ironically, was letting go. Pointing him in the right direction and asking him what he needs in order to do what he wants to do.’
Hisao wanted to be closer to his guests, says Mika, translating for her husband, who speaks limited English. ‘He wanted to know more about how the guests eat, how they look when they eat his dishes.’ The tiny restaurant has half a dozen staff, including Mika and Hisao, all Japanese. ‘We don’t even have a dishwasher. He wants to control his kitchen. He wants to see all the dishes. He wants to wash the dishes because he wants to see how the plates return from the tables.’
The guests who’ve thus far passed through the noren are already quite familiar with Japanese cuisine and have already visited the country, Mika adds. ‘Most of the guests say they waited for this kind of Japanese food. We were surprised, actually, because it was a bit challenging to do this project.’
A meal starts with taking your shoes off and settling in on a very low seat (or a low table with an open space underneath, and chairs without legs). You’ll be served by a waitress, who pads around, like Mika, in a beautifully tied kimono and white socks; kneeling next to your table, she’ll pour out your drinks and talk through each dish – in some cases, each ingredient. You’ll leave fairly conversant in the likes of sticky lotus-root cake and tiny potato-like vegetables that represent new beginnings (if you eat at the beginning of the year, that is). It’s not a slow meal, by any means, but measured. The personalised approach is expected of a kaiseki meal. ‘Dubai Opera’s CEO Jasper Hope approached us and told us, “I need a show before the show’,’’ says Benjamin. That said, I suggest it’s best to reserve a kaiseki experience for when you don’t have a performance to go to afterwards, and can just enjoy the meal.
‘Zuma, Nobu, these kind of restaurants have success in this market. It’s different – we also sometimes go, we like their food, but it’s not authentic, not only the dishes but the atmosphere – that’s why you don’t see Japanese people there. This is what we feel, so we thought this concept [Kohantei] is too Japanese for people. So far so good, but it’s not for everyone. Still many people prefer the Zuma and Nobu style – it is more familiar.’
‘California roll,’ grunts Hisao.
‘Yeah, we don’t serve California roll,’ says Mika with a laugh.