It is all about the grill at Sumibikappou Ifuki. The sounds of the crackling charcoal echoes in the open space, filling up the room with delicious smokiness. Your eyes follow the chef’s swift moves as he works the fresh ingredients over the hot grill. The seasonal omakase menu is composed of about ten dishes, mostly of their speciality grills.

“Charcoal adds this great aroma while keeping the moisture inside each ingredient, Yamamoto says. “This method gives you a score of 120%, without having have to put in extra work.”

The way to master the art of charcoal grilling comes down to craftsmanship, the chef explains. The precise time of cooking is determined by the condition of the ingredients, the day’s weather and other subtle variables. To get the perfect heat and smoke, the chef mixes Bincho charcoal from Hinata and Laos. He also needs to keep the meal flowing at a steady pace.

The bluefin tuna has become the restaurant’s signature dish. At first glance, the soft pink slices of tuna looks like sashimi. The moment you put it in your mouth, you realize the fish is just delicately seared, adding more sweetness and umami. The grated spicy radish adds a perfect accent.

The pufferfish milt is served on a beautiful Millefiori Moretti plate of blue and yellow mosaics. The creamy milt is just lightly grilled and draped on a hot bed of rice, drizzled with sesame-infused soy sauce and tossed with a generous heap of shaved black truffles. A breathtaking dish to remember the meal by.

A limited menu for December and January is a bear roast, slow-cooked for over 20 minutes over the crackling charcoal. The meat, which comes from bears in Gifu Prefecture, has been maturing for two to three weeks under snow. Drizzled with spicy sansho pepper sauce and Shimonita onion paste, the rich umami and sweet fat of the meat melt in your mouth.

The blackthroat seaperch is grilled to perfection, with the skin lightly browned and crisp and the meat so succulent and moist. The fish is topped with flavorful morsels of Bafun sea urchin and fried kuwai arrowroot chips. The mix of different textures is simply amazing.

Slices of abalone are stacked up on top of each other and sprinkled generously with homemade karasumi or salting mullet roe. Every year, Yamamoto makes about 10 kg of karasumi to use in various recipes. The abalone is caught off the shores of Obama in Fukui Prefecture. The crab is grilled quickly for just six or seven minutes to keep its freshness. To allow its natural flavor to come out, he doesn’t add much more to the dish except for a couple of tiny Tiny kabura radishes on the side.

INGREDIENTS
Yamamoto sources most of the seafood such as sweet bream, blackthroat seaperch and crab from a close vendor in Fukui Prefecture. His favorite is the Shibayama crabs caught off the coast of Kami in Hyogo Prefecture. He also likes to check for fresh catches at the central market. The meats are sent directly from producers he knows well. The bear meat comes from different matagis, traditional winter hunters in northern Japan.

He is committed to sourcing local Kyoto grown vegetables such as the green onions grown in the Takagamine district of Kyoto. The salt comes from Kumihamacho in Kyotango, while the Habutae rice grains are grown in Shiga Prefecture. Mazuma wasabi is grown in Niigata or Shizuoka. Not restricted to specific producers or region, he is always on the watch for new ingredients across the country. The magic of charcoal unleashes the natural flavors in these selected ingredients. The method may seem simple at first but a lot of work and focus go into selecting the best quality ingredients.