At his namesake restaurant Ryota Kappou Modern, Ryota Kanesawa wants to bridge the gap between European techniques with Japanese kaiseki cuisine.
Trained in the traditional art of Japan’s kaiseki cuisine, lauded as the country’s central fine-dining style, Ryota Kanesawa is anything but a traditionalist.
From his birthplace of Osaka, he ventured west to begin a seven-year-long career at Japanese izakaya group Zuma in London, before moving to Hong Kong with the chain. Next came a stint at the former Tenku Ryu Gin at Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong, formerly the world’s tallest Japanese restaurant.
Ryota’s former work relied too heavily on the traditional tenets of Japanese cuisine or deviated from what Japanese food represents, he explains. After meeting a local businessman, the Japanese chef sought to make his own mark on Japanese cuisine in Hong Kong with Ryota Kappou Modern.
“At Ryota Kappou Modern, we want to combine both Western techniques and my background in Japanese kaiseki cuisine,” Ryota shares at his restaurant during lunch break.
Quite possibly the most traditional culinary art existing in the world, bound by history and strict principles for how and what should be served on the plate, Ryota was eager to show that Japanese cuisine, specifically the multi-course style of kaiseki sub-cuisine, can be brought into a more contemporary space.
“Our European touch, with ingredients and techniques, is unique. Japanese people and chefs have a strong mentality that traditional restaurants, like a Kyoto style with history preparing kaiseki cuisine, must have strict rules to follow.”
He describes Japan’s kaiseki restaurants as “too serious”: silent, no talking, phone-off, and sometimes precluding the use of perfume. The traditions alienate people, he says.
Ryota sought to inject some life and colour into Japanese fine-dining when he opened his namesake restaurant in 2018. “Of course, I respect history and I must share what I learned. But sometimes, it gets boring for me. I want to make it more innovative!”
Whilst protecting Japanese culinary history and without ignoring the technique and history, Ryota spruces up dishes with modern, European techniques using Japanese products.
A starter dish, a Japanese monaka wafer sandwich, brings together whiskey jelly, foie gras, edible flowers, and dots of raspberry and grated chocolate. The little bite is coloured with a bright green pistachio cream.
On the dinner menu, he serves a French duck porcini mushroom soup, a fruit tomato jelly cocktail with basil oil, grilled Boston lobster with a buttery miso sauce, and a chestnut ice cream ends the meal with a dessert. Ryota finds that Japanese chefs typically do not use any plants or protein from the West.
“I am not good at focusing on just one thing, like a sushi chef only making sushi. It’s boring to me,” he admits. “I am happy to create an atmosphere for customers at my restaurant to understand my cooking.”
Luckily, for Ryota’s desire to learn and educate Hong Kong, kaiseki cuisine involves a multi-course staging of plates combining techniques, including light tempura frying, grilling meat, slicing raw fish, and stewing soup.
Ryota knows Hong Kong and is clever enough to play off of the city’s undying love for Japanese cuisine. “I like working in my restaurant with an open-kitchen so I can see my guests and their eyes on the first bite!”
“Compared to 15 years ago, Hong Kong now has very good Japanese food. Then, people did not know how to eat raw food, like sushi. I am full of confidence to work here and show the history and details of kaiseki cuisine.”
In the past year, Ryota has reduced the prices of their lunch and dinner menus in an effort to stem loss of business from Hong Kongers travelling to Shenzhen for cheaper meals or Japan.
To the Osakan chef, he is confident of the value of his European-influenced Japanese fine-dining food, as the modernist wants to bridge the gap between the traditions of Japan and what diners are eating today.
Visit Ryota Kappou Modern for an experience blending Europe and Japan on the plate.
