The chef’s course contains an astounding twenty or more dishes, including around seven appetizers maximizing the innate flavor of the premium ingredients. The abalone in the savory egg custard is from the best region each season and has an exquisite al dente texture followed by a milky flavor that makes you fall in love with this dish. It is topped with a glossy, thickened sauce rich in the flavor of clam broth. The deceptively simple-looking octopus dish is a masterpiece. The octopus from Sajima, Kanagawa, takes one hour to cook, culminating in a performance in which the chef hooks it out of the boiling pot and takes it straight to the plate, serving up exquisite texture alongside deeply satisfying aromas accented by sudachi citrus.

Diners should plan a visit in autumn to savor sanma Pacific saury – a dish showcasing the chef’s mastery of Japanese cooking techniques. He opens the fish to remove every bone painstakingly, then returns the innards for cooking. The aromas of the grilled skin and juicy flesh are jaw-droppingly good. For guests enjoying sake, the chef serves bottarga mullet roe that has been pickled in a combination of sake lees, white miso, red miso, and Shinshu miso, resulting in a succulent flavor that will leave you asking for another serving of sake.

Chef Mitsui designs his nigiri to fill the mouth before gently falling apart, with rice cooked in a hagama traditional pot and seasoned with elegant rice vinegar to highlight the seafood umami. The seafood toppings include madai sea bream from Akashi, Hyogo, rested for two to three days for a luscious, velvety texture; kasugodai young sea bream from Oarai, Ibaraki, rested and pickled in daidai orange vinegar; and akagai bloody clam from Yuriage, Miyagi, which is not well known but in fact an outstanding producer of these fleshy clams. The nikiri reduction – a soy sauce, sake, and mirin blend – brushed on some of the nigiri pieces is a slightly salty style to add interest and modulation to the meal.

INGREDIENTS
Mitsui makes a daily trip to Toyosu to visit suppliers he forged ties with during his time at Ginza Harutaka, in addition to new relationships cultivated by himself. One indispensable ingredient is fish sent by Imabari, Ehime-based fisherman Junichi Fujimoto – a man constantly sought after by distinguished chefs in Japan for their restaurants of diverse cuisines from sushi to traditional Japanese, Chinese, French, Italian, and beyond. Fujimoto delivers fish in the best possible state using shinkeijime and other proprietary techniques to lock in freshness and umami. Sea bream and managatsuo butterfish have such refined sweetness and exquisite flavor, allowing Chef Mitsui to treat guests to seafood like they have never tasted before. Other fish and shellfish arrive direct from the Goto Archipelago in Nagasaki. And the all-important maguro is supplied by renowned Toyosu dealer Yamasawa; on this day, a 137-kilogram, longline-caught bluefin tuna from Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture.

Mitsui uses aged Koshihikari rice from Yamagata Prefecture, whose large grains are cooked to fall apart perfectly. It is seasoned with Mitsukan Shiragiku vinegar. For that kick so many love in sushi, Mitsui prepares wasabi mostly from Gotemba and the Naka-Izu region of Shizuoka.