This is the fourth installment on the media event entitled “A Journey to Unravel Tokyo’s Diverse Food and Spirit,” organized by the Tokyo Food Promotion 2024 Executive Committee and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. This week I look at what Tokyo has to offer in the 21st century as presented by Chef Yahei Suzuki, whose restaurant, Piatto Suzuki, has borne a Michelin star for fourteen years straight.
Chef Suzuki’s menu appears above. I will focus on the first dish, as I found this to be the most interesting and believe that my readers might, too. This is not to imply that the other dishes are less worthy of attention. It is simply because time and space constraints prevent me from saying anything more than “DELICIOUS”!
Suzuki-san’s Dried Tomato Style Vegetable Terrine contains a number of toothsome and unambiguously healthful ingredients: burdock root, yellow carrot, red core radish, to name a few. Aside from appealing to the palate, the dish is a serious piece of eye candy, whose colorful ingredients are evocative of the four seasons. The only thing missing is Antonio Vivaldi.
Members of the press were invited to ask questions, of course, and I took the opportunity to ask Chef Suzuki how he might promote the eating of monkfish liver in North America, where the fish is largely unappreciated. (Note: drinkingjapan.org ran a piece on this fish in the recent past. See “Glorification of the Monkfish,” December 15, 2024.) He suggested likening it to foie gras and getting the fishy smell out. Recommended sauce—ponzu.
Piatto Suzuki: Tel-Fax: 5414-2116
Drinking Japan 