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Ishida, the 'gods' of Japanese cuisine: "We have to stop wishing for so many things, and we have to do it now"

2022-11-25T11:20:21.855Z


Hiroyoshi and Tomiko Ishida, 80 and 81 years old, form a legendary couple in world gastronomy. They run Mibu, in Tokyo, a benchmark of technical skill and respect for nature for chefs from all over the planet. A place halfway between a restaurant, a club and a Zen sanctuary.


Gonad and puffer fish semen, turnip in

dashi broth, ayu

roe (a fried fish eaten with the hands starting from the head),

sayori

(spring fish) wrapped in dried lotus leaf, sea cucumber rice , frozen water that, once its ice layer is broken, liquefies becoming a kind of silver pearls... and even the moon on a plate are some of the creations that the Ishida couple —Hiroyoshi and Tomiko— serve on individual tablecloths made of purified cedar and containers more than 300 years old at his Mibu restaurant in the Ginza neighborhood of Tokyo.

Restaurant?

Rather a gastronomic-spiritual Zen sanctuary.

Also a private club where the same or more relevance is given to textures, shapes, colors and above all symbolisms than to the flavors themselves, in what is the original basis of the so-called

kaiseki cuisine.

, according to Japanese tradition, a light lunch that the host offered to his guests before attending the tea ceremony.

A tiny dining room of barely 20 square meters, in a nondescript and anonymous apartment block, which can only be accessed by eight diners-partners in the midday service and eight in the afternoon, and which the best chefs in the world regard as an absolute benchmark and as the perfect model of tradition turned into avant-garde: "In Mibu you cook with your soul and you eat with your mind" (Ferran Adrià).

“With very small things they do big things, they knock down walls, and that questions you” (Andoni Luis Aduriz).

“It is a pure paradox: being a place of tradition and spiritual cuisine, it represents absolute modernity” (Joan Roca).

"They are wise" (Juan Mari Arzak).

Tomiko and Hiroyoshi Ishida are respectively 80 and 81 years old.

They have been cooking for more than 40 years and serving their clients, who perhaps should be called, rather, followers.

In the last 20 they have changed their menu every month.

In two decades they have not repeated a single recipe on the menu, nor have they repeated any ingredient in two dishes on the same menu.

She is the only person authorized to serve the dishes created by her husband and her three helpers in Mibu's tiny kitchen.

Sometimes they release fireflies that light up the dining room or butterflies that flutter among the visitors.

Every day, at the end of the day, the Ishida go to a Buddhist temple to pray and meditate.

They plan to continue in the breach, if the gods and the priestesses they venerate allow it, until they are 100 years old.

Mibu.

The moon on a plate

,

premiered at the last San Sebastian Festival.

The couple stayed in the city for almost a week, accompanied by 20 "faithful" (partners, helpers and disciple cooks);

She received the tribute from the Basque Culinary Center during a dinner served by Barcelona chef Albert Raurich, and toured restaurants and gastronomic societies as if

she were two thirty -something

foodies .

We talked with them during a break from their exhausting tour of San Sebastian.

They dress elegantly, smile all the time, and bow incessantly.

They are like characters from another time transferred to this one.

Tomiko and Hiroyoshi Ishida, in the Mibu dining room in a still from the documentary 'Mibu.

the moon on a plate'.


Would you say that your work as cooks is an extension of the spiritual dimension of your life?

Tomiko Ishida.

Yes, and also a manifestation of respect for nature.

Cooks have to respect nature and take into account the succession of the seasons and the changes and influence on the products, that is essential.

The human being cannot create anything without the natural element.

He by himself cannot create anything.

And this was already predicted 300 years ago: if we continue behaving like this, with similar levels of consumption, we will end up lacking food.

In addition, farmers, fishermen and meat breeders are getting older and there is no one who wants to take over.

And what is there to do?

IT We simply have to stop wishing for so many things.

And you have to do it now.

Can you elaborate on that please?

IT Yes;

if not, it will be too late.

That is the message that we want to transmit from Mibu to the world.

Having desires is fine;

have too many, no.

Thinking is fine;

think too much, no.

Thinking too much is wanting too many things.

And that destroys us.

You have to live simply.

Is that message that we are basically doing the wrong thing by disrespecting nature?

TI Yes. We have to receive the energy of the moon and nature within us, and give thanks for that.

If not, we will not be able to continue with our task.

There are chefs and gastronomy entrepreneurs who sometimes make use of that “sustainable” message and that defense of nature that you do in a somewhat hypocritical way.

But in the case of Mibu, also, that's on the plate, right? It's not just theory...

IT Exactly.

But, I repeat, 300 years ago the priestesses were already talking about this, about respecting the mother earth, the stones, the trees and the plants, and the water..., and if we don't do it now, there will be a lack of food and water and the destruction of nature.

One of Mibu's dishes, superimposed on Ishida's image.

One of Albert Raurich's dishes at the dinner held at the Basque Culinary Center in honor of the Ishidas, Edible Films

In a country with the cultural weight of Japan —theater, cinema, art, literature…—, do you consider haute cuisine an art or just a more or less sophisticated way of preparing food?

Hiroyoshi Ishida.

No, I do not consider my dishes as works of art or as shows at all.

I only work with respect for nature in mind, and if a dish comes out like this, it means that my thoughts have materialized that way.

And if that dish manages to transmit sensations, thoughts or ideas to the customer, then it makes me very happy.

There are many dishes and many cooks who look for rarity or provocation without really giving value to the ingredients.

For me that is not cooking.

What would you say the kitchen is?

HI Treat the product as little as possible.

The important thing in Japanese cuisine is the essence.

Enforce the ingredient instead of killing it.

How do you do that and then have the wonders that land on your restaurant's plates come out?

HI Practicing Zen meditation and receiving the keys and advice from heaven.

I have been working this way for many years.

But one would say that there is a kind of tension between the apparent simplicity of his creations and the enormous conceptual complexity that is intuited behind them.

Is it so?

HI Yes, that's right.

Is simplicity the hardest thing to achieve?

HI Achieving simplicity is the most complicated for human beings, also when cooking.

Adding is easy, removing is much more difficult.

In the kitchen it is key to find the balance between adding and subtracting... and it is the most difficult.

Tomiko and her husband Hiroyoshi Ishida go to pray and meditate at a temple every day.

But against that spiritual intention and aspiration to simplicity, almost to asceticism, is the unstoppable avalanche of stimuli from life.

How do you cope?

HI You are right.

That happens to us every day.

Everyday thoughts and noise make meditation difficult.

And the more you sit to meditate, the more noises you hear!

Is the way you cook in some way a reaction to that daily noise?

IT We think so.

Every month we make a new menu, and that means a new creation.

For 40 years, we have never repeated one of those monthly menus.

Is not easy.

You travel with a whole retinue of clients, partners, disciples, apprentices… is Mibu, excuse me, some kind of good sect?

[Laughter] TI In addition to our clients and our workers, there are people who like us a lot and with whom we share many sensibilities.

We told a group of those people: “Let's go to San Sebastián, to the Film Festival”.

They told us: “Okay, here we go!”

We told them: "Air tickets and hotels are very expensive."

They replied: “Okay, no problem”.

They were willing to come out as it was.

I admit that ours is a very peculiar world.

How exactly does the Mibu access system work?

IT In October of each year we provide our clients with their agenda for the following year.

Before we had about 300 members and now about 220. We usually have two days off a week, we usually rest on Wednesdays and weekends.


Days after the interview, Mr. and Mrs. Ishida sent a video to explain and visually specify their peculiar table allocation system.

In the video, Mrs. Ishida comments, in the dining room of the restaurant and while she displays a white card with Japanese characters written in orange and black: “This is Mibu's envelope.

On the back is written '2023′ and there is the member's agenda for the coming year.

We just handed out the last 2023 boosters to our customers at dinner today.

Clients come to Mibu according to this schedule.

Several of them have been coming to our restaurant for close to 40 years, that is, once a month without fail, even in covid times.

Mibu receives eight diners maximum per session.

Until recently we did three sessions a day: at 11:00, 14:30 and 18:30.

When we were younger we could do it like this, now we no longer feel capable and we only do the sessions at 2:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.

This is the envelope for next year.

So next year is already organized!”.


Do you prefer to talk about partners or clients?

IT We call them “partners”.

Can

only members eat at Mibu or do they admit other types of clientele?

TI Only members can eat at Mibu.

We do not accept strangers.

A member can bring someone if there is room, but is responsible for his guest.

And if we don't want him to come back, he doesn't come back.

How much do they pay for it?

IT They pay 30,000 yuan [about 205 euros] with everything included: taxes, service and drinks, only sake.

We serve the same menu at lunchtime and in the evening, we change the menu every month and we never repeat an ingredient within the same menu.

Customers bring an envelope with the amount in cash each time they come for lunch or dinner.

Various clients-partners of Mibu, in the middle of lunch.

In the background, Tomiko Ishida.

Someone who has been to Mibu can tell a friend: "There you eat ice water, and you even eat the moon."

But how can you explain it?

[Laughs] HI The theme of our October tasting menu was the moon, yes.

That is the time when you can best see the full moon in Japan and parties and meetings are held around that.

And for those festivities we have some traditional dishes.

The moon is a source of inspiration for us.

One day I was looking at it in a crescent moon and it occurred to me: "I'm going to offer the moon to my clients."

What do you think has been the most extreme or radical dish that you have ever served in Mibu?

TI When I was recovering from cancer, we went to take a break in the country in winter and we saw icicles there.

Then Hiroyoshi tasted them and said, "My, the taste of icicles varies a lot from tree to tree."

This is how

El plato del cárámbano

was born , and we served it at elBulli [during the historic 2003 meeting in Cala Montjoi in which Adrià and Ishida cooked together].

Then, in early winter, a thin ice usually forms in puddles or gardens, called

usu-goori

in Japanese.

This ice is so fine that if you tap it, it breaks clean.

From there we made

The Ice Plate.

They are dishes that are born from the inspiration that Ishida had when we went to the mountains.

I think they are reproduced by various chefs in the world.

Ferran and his colleagues were surprised that dishes could be served with just water.

Do you consider that there may be "common paths" between

kaiseki

cuisine and some western cuisine?

HI If there is, I think it could be the feeling of seasonality.

Also, each country has its own “mother's kitchen”.

If those fundamentals are lost, the kitchen becomes something strange, almost comical.

In the kitchen, something very important are the principles.

You have to value the mother's cooking, seasonal products and local products.

If not, you will go in a strange direction, and that will be the end of it.

Do you fear that the Ishida legacy will one day be lost?

HI We don't have that fear.

In the first place, the kitchen and the palate belong exclusively to each one and cannot be bequeathed to other people or generations.

In the end, a chef, after training and learning enough, must resort to his own sensitivity.

The kitchen changes with the sensitivity of each person.

Younger people will come out and they will be much better than us.

Mibu will end when we stop working.

We recently made the 100 Year Declaration;

This means that we will continue to be active until we are 100 years old and that for this we will work in a way that is adapted to our age.

To do this, we remember the last thing our priestess Anju-sama told us: “Keep your umbrella at 70%, do not overextend what you do in life against rain and wind.

Don't be greedy."

It means that a person with 1.

Will there be relief when you leave it?

HI We don't have successors, but some of those who trained here have opened their own restaurants.

One is Daimu and the other is Jisei, both located very close to Mibu.

They are based on what they learned from Ishida.

Now, this type of partner system is a very difficult thing to do.

Many of Mibu's customers now also go to these

exmibus

restaurants .

In any case, I believe that they should not count on these clients forever, but rather they have to get their own clientele.

What do you admire or look at with curiosity in Western cuisine?

HI When I saw Western cuisine for the first time, I felt that the eating experience can be a real fantasy world.

When I went to elBulli for the first time I thought: “What a wonderful world”.

They served air the same as when we serve water in Mibu.

These items do not fill the stomach and people might think: "But what is this dish?".

Serving air is an amazing thing.

There aren't many people who can bring those things to perfection.

You can make delicious food, but there are few people who can make such fantastic things.

It's a subtle difference, but it's a big difference.

So, Ferran Adrià is a national treasure, I think.

Ishida will work until he is 100 years old, so I hope Ferran will also think about how he can fix his big tree so that every year visitors from Japan come to see it.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-11-25

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