Japan
Obsessive seasonality and craft — from a three-Michelin counter to the best bowl of noodles you’ll eat standing up.
Duck under the noren curtain of a counter that seats eight, order by pointing, and watch a bowl of ramen arrive that someone has spent years learning to make — the broth simmered overnight, the noodles cut to the shop’s own thickness, a soft egg halved to order. Japan treats its humblest food with the seriousness other countries keep for cathedrals.
It all rests on a few pure things: short-grain rice, the smoky-savoury stock called dashi, soy, and an almost devotional attention to the season — the first bonito of spring, autumn’s matsutake, winter crab. At a sushi counter the chef sets one piece in front of you at a time, the rice still warm, and expects you to eat it before the temperature slips. Eat where the locals do — the standing soba stall, the smoke-filled izakaya, the ramen shop with a line out the door — and let the country show how much can be said with rice, fish and restraint.
- sushi & sashimi
- ramen
- tempura
- okonomiyaki (savoury pancake)
- tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlet)
- wagyu beef
- matcha sweets