Meet the Japanese chef bringing French cuisine to the heart of old Tokyo
Noboru Arai, whose Hommage restaurant has just been awarded two Michelin stars, reflects on the differences between French and Japanese culinary traditions
When you went to France for a year, at the age of 24, how familiar were you with the cuisine? “I didn’t know much before going to the country. In Japan, there used to be a television show called The Heaven of Cuisine, which helped me to learn a bit about it, but I still barely knew anything.”
What was the first French dish you learned to cook? “A classic one – pigeon with berry sauce. I learned it more than 20 years ago. At the time, I found it really disgusting! But it was a valuable lesson, as it allowed me to better understand French cuisine and its techniques.”
What do French and Japanese cuisines have in common? “There are actually more differences than similarities. French cuisine has many classic recipes, but it has also changed a lot over time. Many French chefs explore ways to push forward their cuisine, looking into techniques and traditions from other cultures, and using those to enhance their creations. Japanese cuisine, on the contrary, mostly sticks to traditional dishes and hardly evolves.”
What was the first meal you had when you arrived in France? “A ham sandwich at a cafe – it was very good!”
Do you prefer to stick to tradition or to evolve dishes? “I think you need some balance between both. On the one hand, you need to preserve the tradition, the basis of your cuisine. But if you focus only on that, you might lose touch with the modern world. At the same time, making your cuisine evolve is important, but without knowing about its traditions and techniques, you don’t have a solid foundation on which to keep creating dishes.”
