Humorous Message and Inventive Hospitality by Zaiyu Hasegawa
(Translated from my Wallpaper* Thailand article, originally published in Thai).
DEN is hidden in a small alley in Tokyo’s printing district Jimbōchō and with nothing but a tiny sticker for its sign. The restaurant was opened by chef Zaiyu Hasegawa when he was only 29 years old. A few years later, DEN was awarded stars by the Michelin Guide and constantly enjoys a top rank on Japan’s restaurant rating website Tabelog. The reputation of DEN gathers accordingly. Now many of world’s most respected chefs and food journalists fly across the globe to Japan to sample Hasegawa’s playful and edible visions “Den Kaiseki”.
The magic of “Den Kaiseki” is, by no means, limited to what’s edible. Rather, it represents formless inventiveness behind Hasegawa’s mind. The chef combines – subconsciously but with great executional fluidity – the “traditional” face of Japanese gastronomic art and cultural identities with his own “contemporary” face, which is fun-filled and personable.
DEN is akin to a “kaiseki” restaurant. “Kaiseki” is Japan’s answer to an haute-cuisine tasting menu. The chef cooks 8-10 mini-courses and serves to his diners one course at a time. For each of these courses, the chef adopts one cooking method. Ingredients used are often of premium quality and only seasonally available. The chef is also responsible for carefully selecting the vessel/porcelain in which he presents his food. It is the synchronisation of seasonal ingredients, culinary skills and porcelain that make a “kaiseki” meal. For Japanese, therefore, a “kaiseki” meal isn’t just a meal but an edible narrative that captures the aesthetics of changing time through food.
When I asked chef Hasegawa, “What is DEN?”, he replied humbly, “DEN is messengers”. In fact, what diners at DEN experience is messages bouncing back and forth jovially, from farmers and suppliers, to porcelain artists and sake producers, via the chef and his endearing Front of House, to his diners. Through “his customers [feeling] happy”, the communication of good will bounce back to those in that creative process. Hasegawa’s “message” does not rely solely on taste or inventiveness of taste. On the contrary, it rests firmly on how to make the “taste-message” reach the heart of his diners. It is noteworthy that “diners” from Hasegawa’s point of view are dynamic: that is, anyone in the world with different backgrounds, values and believes. Hasegawa’s attempt at cuisine communication becomes the focal point and unyielding charm of “DEN kaiseki”. It resonates and makes tangible the chef’s commitment in “Omotenashi” – or the spirit of self-less hospitality – which forms the ideal of Japanese hospitality.
During the interview, Hasegawa spoke profusely of his childhood and the influences his mother has on his approach to hospitality. Hasegawa’s mother worked as a geisha in a well-known “ryotei”. It is her who instilled in him the spirit of hospitality (or Omotenashi). Hasegawa also inherits this “well-intentioned” cooking from her, which he described as a kind of pure, self-less effort that a mother makes for her children. He later trained as a chef at an established “ryotei” called Uotoku. Hasegawa added that the purpose of cooking is as important as the cooking itself. He’d like his food to focus on those consuming it, rather than on the ambition of the chef who innovates cuisines.
Personally, Hasegawa finds “kaiseki” a pretentious art form that ordinary people in the modern, ever-changing world find inaccessible. It incorporates high-brow gastronomy with poetic modes of delivery to achieve its own self-pleasing aesthetics. “DEN kaiseki” is, therefore, something that isn’t “kaiseki” but a tasty and relaxed form of mimicry contrary to that high art. As a Shinjuku native, Hasegawa is more used to cosmopolitan influences than what a high-brow Japanese culinary tradition claims itself to be. His diners will come across these urban touches with an acute sense of teenage humour cuteness. “Kawaii”, in other words. Food containers at DEN, such as mock-up KFC boxes or Starbucks mugs, become the parody of contemporary cultures. They are also the surprise factor and contrast sharply with the tradition of “kaiseki” that often values priceless vessel.
Hasegawa’s deceptively simple cooking has its emphasis on approachability. He is never shy away from re-interpreting and serving humble dishes. One of his best known creations is DEN Salad, a take not dissimilar to the thought process that goes into the making of Michael Bras’s Gargouillou. Underneath the luscious leaves and vivid petals is an assembly of seasonal vegetables bound loosely by a tangy kombu dressing. Hasegawa is usually proud of the quality of his vegetables as they are tendered by his sister in their own family garden in Tanashi, West of Tokyo. The respect can be seen through the fact that different cooking skills have been applied to each green variety in order to bring out its most natural taste. Tomato wedges are marinated with sweetened rice vinegar and warmed up to the point of ripening mellowness. Crunchy burdock roots are roasted and tossed in hojicha tea leaf powder. But, the true joy is when you discover deep-fried gingko nuts with a meticulously engraved smiley face. “Kawaii”, indeed. The fun also changes according to seasons. In autumn, when Shishamo fish are prime delicacies, Hasegawa magically deep-fried them into a standing position (photo below) and served it with kombu salt made in house. When I last visited DEN, the chef was busy experimenting with a new dessert: The Pebbles. These pebble-lookalike treats are, in fact, Japanese manju (a round rice-flour cake filled with bean paste). The thin and light casing, made from coal ash mix, has a tint of chalky grey. The warm and smooth while bean paste is infused with white chocolate and yuzu. Once lifted, the Pebble reveals a face afeared of being eaten.
I have eaten at Jimbocho DEN 4 times, and with these jokes aside, Hasegawa showcases exceptionally solid cooking skills and sensitivities of taste. I press why this humour is needed, and his reply is, “I can’t speak foreign languages. The joy that I implement in my cooking will hopefully carry messages and hospitality across in ways that languages may do”.
More albums from Jimbocho DEN are on my Facebook here.
JIMBOCHO DEN
傳 （伝 でん）
Tel. +81332223978
