Chef Niitome wants the flavors of his premium ingredients in light-as-a-feather batter to stay in your memory forever. With a course that begins with four to five appetizer dishes followed by around thirteen tempura morsels of seafood and vegetables, all your tempura preconceptions will be overturned, making for an unforgettable experience. During an intermission in which you are treated to a refreshing vinegared creation, the chef changes the oil in preparation for your closing dish – a choice of ten-don rice topped with tempura; tempura chazuke, like tendon but finished with umami-rich green tea poured over the top; or tenbara containing rice mixed with a broken-up fritter. With the light batter, perfect tempo, and fun conversation with the chef, you leave feeling fulfilled, but not in the least heavy, and thoroughly entertained.

Niitome has mastered the art of a batter so fine that it wows you with its texture without masking any of the produce’s innate flavors. Not only is his flour stored at almost freezing point, but Niitome makes the unconventional move of turning down or even turning off the oil midway through the frying process. He controls the flavors through minute temperature changes, driven by a creed of intervening just enough to enhance the ingredients’ flavors through frying. In a summer course, after appetizers that may include steamed abalone, aji horse mackerel that has been aged for five days using techniques acquired from sushi chefs, or a highly refreshing dish of watarigani Japanese blue crab with its eggs, comes the star of the show – tempura. The crispy fried legs of prawns and flesh in paper-thin batter, the meaty flesh of squid tenderized through meticulous knife cuts, and kisu whiting fish. Vivid green colors draw you in to delectably sweet asparagus, with different parts of the spears offering noticeably different textures. Manganji chili peppers of Kyoto fame are charred to aromatic perfection and then fried; their intense sweetness is achieved through a two-step frying process in which the flame beneath the oil pot is turned off once.

Live ayu sweetfish are plunged into iced water, dressed in batter and tossed into the oil where they appear to swim. The flavor unfolds from elegant bitterness into delicious sweetness as you savor these unbelievably fresh fish. Sweet baby corn offers a true summer treat fried with its silks. Generously plump hamaguri clams grow even fuller upon frying, infusing the tempura batter with umami-rich shellfish brine. Seaweed from Miyagi Prefecture’s Aizawa, made by appointment to the Imperial Family, has batter applied to one side before frying, and the piping hot edible vessel is topped with delicious, velvety fresh sea urchin. Anago conger eel fillets are fried whole, and the crisp sound as they are cut into bite-size pieces effortlessly with chopsticks is irresistible.

INGREDIENTS
Niitome makes no compromises when selecting the premium ingredients for his cuisine. His pursuit of the highest quality sees him selecting seafood that more often makes its way into the hands of Ginza-based sushi chefs. He accesses Tsukiji Market in Tokyo and has direct contact with fishermen in ports around Japan to secure his key seafood ingredients. The ‘Aroma of Aichi’ (Aichi no Kaori) rice grown at his wife’s family farm has the ideal sweetness for the finishing dishes, and Niitome loves the clean taste and delicate texture of salt from Okinawa. His oil is a blend of Taihaku and Taikou sesame oils from Takemoto Oil & Fat Co., the ratio of which is altered to complement each ingredient. His tempura dipping sauce, containing dashi extracted from the dark flesh of the bonito fish, takes on two faces: an elegant style for dipping individual tempura bites and a more robust style for the tendon bowl. The latter is a living sauce, constantly tended to, added to, and aged using hints and techniques acquired from a soba restaurant.

Master of Wine Kenichi Ohashi has compiled the beverage selection of wine, sake and shochu. The wines are lined up by taste and body, simplifying ordering for customers; the sake varieties, with their mild sweetness, pair superbly with the tempura. Ohashi’s selections offer perfectly complementary flavors because they were made from a place of deep understanding and love for Chef Niitome’s cuisine.