Japanese cuisine has some of the most intricate meal preparations and traditions which have been passed down from one generation to the next. But that doesn't mean that such rigidity leaves no room for creativity or innovation. On the contrary, culinary art is a space where one's imagination and skill flourishes and evolves over time.
In an obscure place in Broadway Alley, not visible from the streets of Seattle, lies Hideaki Taneda's humble restaurant where he serves a fusion of two Japanese styles of cuisine: kaiseki and sushi.
Taneda keeps the lights on high, Japanese style, so his audience can watch him wrap sweet Canadian shrimp around uni and dot snow crab with glowing granules of caviar—“I want to show them my skill.” He’s not messing around.
He is, however, taking some liberties with two different branches of Japanese food. Before he left Tokyo, he spent six years at a restaurant that cross-pollinated kaiseki and sushi.
“It’s not very common in Japan,” he acknowledges. His own restaurant returns to this approach, embedding certain kaiseki traditions into a framework more familiar to Americans—the sushi omakase.
(Image credit: Hilary McMullen/Seattle Met)