Who Are You Cooking For?

The greatest pairing is not simply the combination of food and drink, but the meeting between a dish and the one person sitting at the table before it.

In this reflection, a chef explores the Japanese philosophy of adapting to each individual, trusting intuition, and creating harmony between the guest, the ingredient and the maker.

CHEF TASHIMA

Chef

“If you ask a chef that question, perhaps the correct answer is, ‘For the guest.’

But I don’t think that is the whole answer.”

Hospitality does not mean adjusting everything to suit the guest’s preferences. And imposing the chef’s own expression on the guest is even further from what I believe hospitality should be.

Every ingredient has its own character, and behind it is the work of those who grew it, caught it, hunted it, and brought it to us.

The chef has an intention. And the person sitting at the table carries the life they have lived.

Culture, memory, experience, the mood of that day, physical condition, expectation.

To me, cooking is the work of understanding these different elements and bringing them into harmony at one table.

Hospitality is not about simply giving the guest everything they want. It is about creating harmony.

Cooking Is Closer to Design Than Art

I think of cooking as closer to design than to art.

Because in cooking, there is always someone who will eat what you create.

Who will eat it?
Where will they eat it?
What are they feeling at that moment?
And what is today’s ingredient telling you?

A chef observes these things, responds to them, and creates a dish.

One of the things that guides that response is intuition.

I do not think intuition is inspiration that suddenly appears from nowhere. I think it is experience that has accumulated faster than our ability to put it into words.

A chef receives countless signals from the person in front of them: their expression, the pace at which they eat, how quickly their glass empties, their conversation, and the atmosphere of the table itself.

Sometimes accumulated experience reaches an answer before language does.

There is not always one correct answer in cooking.

The answer changes depending on who is eating and what that person is feeling in that particular moment.

When Pairing Becomes a Romance

The relationship between food and drink is no different.

At my restaurant, pairing food with drink is an important part of what I do.

And I think of mariage and pairing as slightly different ideas.

If mariage, as the word suggests, is marriage, then I would like pairing to be a romance.

A sweet and beautiful harmony that makes you want to stay together forever is not the only kind of taste that remains in the heart.

Some romances end with a wistful acidity.

Some leave behind a bitterness you never forget.

There should be pairings like that, too.

Seen this way, pairing is no longer simply a matter of saying, “This drink goes with this dish.”

The dish.
The drink.
The person.
And the moment.

Perhaps the greatest pairing is not about discovering an answer that already exists, but about creating a relationship that can exist only once, between that person and that moment.

Creating the Moment Together

And this idea of creating something together, with the people who are there on that particular day, is not new to me.

When I think about Japanese cuisine and hospitality, the spirit of hospitality cultivated through the Japanese tea ceremony is one of the ideas that has deeply influenced me.

There is a Japanese expression: ichiza konryu (一座建立).

It describes the idea that the host alone does not create the occasion. The guests are also part of its creation. The people, the place, and that particular day come together to make something that exists only once.

I believe the same is true at the dining table.

It is not a one-way relationship in which the chef makes a dish and the guest simply receives it.

The presence of the guest changes the chef’s decisions.

The ingredient changes the chef’s intentions.

They influence one another, creating a moment that could exist only on that day, in that place.

That is what ichiza konryu means to me.

Cooking Between Japan and India

And now, I am preparing to travel from Japan to India to cook.

If I simply brought Japanese food culture to India exactly as it is, it would undoubtedly be exotic and stimulating.

But I do not want the table I create to be a place where Japanese culture is presented in only one direction.

India and Japan each have their own food cultures.

Both have been passed down over long periods of time by choosing what to keep, letting other things go, embracing what is new, and continually changing.

So I do not think of culture as something that remains unchanged.

Rather, I believe that culture survives because it continues to change.

In that sense, culture resembles fermentation.

Just as microorganisms work within a particular place and environment to create flavors unique to that setting, food cultures also continue to change through encounters with things that are different from themselves.

Food culture is still unfinished.

Beyond it lies a future we have not yet tasted.

So when I cook in India, what should I be thinking about?

Before asking,

“How should I communicate Japanese cuisine?”

I want to ask,

“Who is sitting at the table today?”

Japanese ingredients and techniques.

Indian ingredients and culture.

Me, the person cooking.

And?