The chef honed his craft at a kappo in Gion for a quarter of a century. “I’m grateful to my mentor, who was a man of culture as well as a chef”, he explains. Appetiser platters, soup dishes and takiawase are all part of a lineup that pays homage to old-school cooking. The chef’s first job in the culinary world was to wring out the hot cloths for guests, and he squeezed them with all his might. His favourite saying, passed down to him from that time, is “kindness, freshness, feeling”.