Tokyo restaurants always knew they were the best, and now Michelin agrees, writes David McNeill.
You could have knocked down some food lovers with a sushi roll this week. Culinary bible the Michelin Guide awarded Tokyo twice as many stars as Paris and nearly four times more than New York in its first guide to the Asian city's top restaurants. But while the gastronomic seal of approval has been greeted with pride in a country that takes its food almost as seriously as the French, it has left some Japanese cold.
Michelin gave 150 Tokyo eateries a total of 191 stars, relegating Paris to a distant second with 94 and New York an embarrassing third with 54. London scored just 50 while Dublin barely gets out of the starting blocks with five stars between four restaurants. "Tokyo has become the world leader in gourmet dining," the tyre manufacturer announced in a press release, accompanied by the sound of a million French hearts breaking.
That thumbs-up for the Japanese capital in Michelin's first guide outside Europe and the US surprised many, but not Koji Morita, who runs a small sushi restaurant in the suburbs west of Tokyo. "We're happy to be recognised, of course, but everybody here knows Japanese food is wonderful," he sniffed. "We didn't need anyone else to tell us."
Japan has long taken for granted that its food puts the rest of the world in the shade. Tokyo alone boasts about 160,000 restaurants, over seven times more than New York. Its top eateries are so exclusive they don't publish menus and can only be visited after an invitation from an established customer. But the publication of the Michelin guide this month has changed all that.
The eight Tokyo establishments given three-star status (the guide's top award) have been swamped by phone calls and new customers, not all of them Japanese speakers. "I'm more tense than pleased," the proprietor of the century-old Hamadaya restaurant complained to the Asahi newspaper yesterday. The award means "exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey". In Sukiyabashi Jiro, a 20,000-yen-a-pop (€123) sushi restaurant in the glitzy Ginza district, there was a decidedly laid-back reaction from owner Jiro Ono. "I've done my best each day with what fish is available and I'll keep doing that," the 82-year-old master chef, who has long been one of Tokyo's best-kept secrets, told Japanese TV. "But I wonder how the French can judge us since they don't know anything about sushi."
Critics here have shaken their heads at some of the guide's choices and wonder whether the foreign judges understood enough about local food to properly evaluate it: 60 per cent of the 150 Tokyo restaurants featured in the Michelin book serve Japanese cuisine. "Do foreign judges really know the balance of flavour and simplicity that goes into a really good Japanese meal?" asked Morita. "I wonder if some westerners can appreciate the subtlety of food here. There are such big differences in our cultures."
Michelin rejects accusations of culinary imperialism and says it sent two Japanese judges along with three French on its 18-month secret tour of Tokyo's gastronomic highlights. The guide's director, Jean-Luc Naret, said that its adjudicators "fully understood" local traditions and that stars were awarded in Paris and Tokyo "in exactly the same way", but admitted that in the future it would prefer to hire only local judges.
The Michelin award comes as Japan gets set to dispatch its own inspectors to check the quality of Japanese food in foreign countries. Japanese tourists - 17 million of whom travel abroad every year - have complained about greasy tempura, lifeless noodles and soggy seaweed when they travel. So last year the ministry of agriculture decided to get tough: it formed the sushi police and sent them to France for a trial run.
The ministry estimates that by the end of this decade, there will be 50,000 Japanese restaurants worldwide and proposes a certification system that would indicate "authentic" Japanese cuisine. "We must protect our food culture," says its website. Possible gastronomic crimes include slicing fish too thick, using too little or too much wasabi and over-boiling rice. California rolls, the fatty version of sushi preferred by many Americans, are apparently top of the hit list.
The hugely influential Michelin food guides, which sell a million copies a year across 100 countries, are likely to accelerate the popularity of Japanese food and keep the ministry busy for years to come.
