A Plate in Time

On a mission to put a modern twist on traditional cuisine, Iron Chef champion Kimio Nonaga brings a special menu to the Nihonbashi Club this month.

In the heart of Nihonbashi—the former political center and arguably still the financial center of Japan—something new is simmering, a new type of washoku.

Club Members can lift the lid on this evolution of traditional Japanese cuisine this month as the American Room collaborates with celebrity chef Kimio Nonaga for a special menu and dinner.

A familiar face in Japanese media, Nonaga is the owner of Nihonbashi Yukari, a long-standing restaurant specializing in washoku that has been authorized to serve the Imperial Household Agency for three generations.

Describing himself as a “food evangelist,” Nonaga has made it his life’s mission to promote washoku and is keen to open up the traditional fare to younger generations and global audiences. As an Iron Chef champion and frequent contributor to Japanese TV, YouTube and social media, he’s built up a loyal fan base, many of whom make the pilgrimage to Nihonbashi to experience his cuisine for themselves.

Nonaga’s approach to cooking stems from his early culinary training. After graduating high school, he obtained a license from the highly regarded Hattori Nutrition College and subsequently headed to Kyoto to train under the renowned Yoshihiro Murata of the three-Michelin-starred Kikunoi—an experience that profoundly influenced his own cuisine.

At Kikunoi’s counter restaurant, Nonaga served kappo cuisine—washoku where customers can order seasonal dishes à la carte—in a setup similar to his family’s Yukari restaurant. There, the emphasis extended beyond simply cooking delicious food but also to sharing the philosophy behind the dishes, bringing context to them and providing warm service to customers, an experience that underscores the omotenashi hospitality he serves up today.

“My master [Murata] was—and still is—a great role model to me,” says Nonaga. “As a leader in Japanese cuisine, it wasn’t just his cooking that made him stand out. He also thinks differently, and I learned a lot from that.”

Nonaga takes his Kyoto training and marries it with recipes and techniques from Kanto cuisine, developing a style of washoku that incorporates and builds on the regional differences found across Japan.

Beyond that, however, Nonaga is also working to develop a cuisine that transcends time.

“I want to create dishes that are based on the past but arranged to suit the modern era,” he says of his “new-type” washoku. “I have studied the fundamentals and Kyoto cuisine and returned to my family’s restaurant. Now I create dishes that are unique to me.”

It’s no secret that Japanese cuisine is gathering global attention and becoming increasingly popular. In full evangelist mode, Nonaga notes with pleasure that chefs around the world are adding their own originality. Yet he feels a strong sense of mission to share the underlying principles of the cuisine, that beyond the evident deliciousness of washoku there’s a good reason behind each component. This, Nonaga says, is something that even younger Japanese don’t appreciate, and it drives him to utilize all tools—including social media—to spread the word.

“It’s well-known that Japanese cuisine is based on the four seasons,” he says. “But—for example—why do we eat wild mountain vegetables in the spring? The bitterness helps to clear the toxins that have built up in winter. Or, in summer, we eat tomatoes and cucumbers to help cool the body. There’s a theory to it, a kind of logic. Using seasonal ingredients is about omotenashi for your body.”

To provide the best hospitality, however, knowing your customers is key, Nonaga emphasizes. Their happiness and satisfaction are first and foremost in his mind when designing the menu of new-type washoku. At the Club’s collaboration dinner, Members can expect to be treated to a carefully curated selection of Nihonbashi Yukari’s signature dishes.

“The first thing I thought about was serving our mozzarella cheese chawanmushi,” says Nonaga of his take on Japan’s popular steamed savory egg custard. “You can really feel the texture.”

Each ingredient has been carefully selected. The eggs are from Tokyo and the mozzarella cheese is from Hokkaido, notes Nonaga, indicating the colorful badge pinned to his shirt highlighting the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. Sustainability is a key consideration, and Nonaga focuses on local production for local consumption as much as possible. Even when using ingredients that are traditionally non-Japanese, he ensures that they are sourced domestically, such as buying caviar produced in Hokkaido.

There’s one exception for the collaboration dinner in honor of Club Members: American beef. “I want guests to discover different ways to incorporate it into cooking that reflect Japanese food culture,” he explains.

Discovery is the main focus of the event. Above all, Nonaga enthuses, he wants guests to experience the deliciousness of Japanese food and feel something new, to realize that there are so many possibilities and so many dishes that appeal to all generations and palates.

Nihonbashi couldn’t be a more fitting setting for such an effort. The center of historic Edo—the starting point of the five major historical roads across Japan—the area also became the focal point for Japan’s post-1868 modernization and emergence onto the global stage.

“Nihonbashi is historically a merchant town,” Nonaga says, “so it feels like it’s a place that sends a message from Japan to the world. I want people to get that feeling through the food, presentation and hospitality.”