Ten to twelve dishes comprise the chef’s degustation course, with ingredients determined by daily deliveries. Chef Katsushi Yoshitake’s creations simultaneously show masterful traditional techniques and creative touches. Simplifying his cuisine over the years, unnecessary garnishes have all been removed to reveal clean cuisine that exudes elegance and a sense of the season.

Obsessive about dashi, the curtain is raised on Yoshitake’s cuisine at each sitting with the shaving of bonito right before guests’ eyes. He serves freshly brewed ichiban dashi so guests can taste the pure flavor and umami of kombu. It is then combined with dashi extracted from premium Makurazaki bonito produced through a long and painstaking process in Kagoshima Prefecture, with the chef making minute adjustments to the ratios to match each dish.

A hair crab shell serves as the vessel for a dish filled with Hokkaido hair crab, grilled eggplant, yuba soymilk skin, and a glistening dashi gelée. The owan lidded bowl dish in early summer features hamo daggertooth pike conger from the bountiful waters of Amakusa, Kumamoto. Remove the lid to reveal the fish curled to perfection with beautiful knife cuts alongside the crunchy stems of a wild nettle variety called mizu, pickled plum, myoga, and sudachi citrus. This aromatic punch leaves a sense of cooling and refreshment.

From Akashi on the Seto Inland Sea comes tai sea bream, freshly cured each morning. Plump Hokkaido prawns appear in a Japanese version of the Chinese dish ‘drunken crab’; the prawns are marinated for two to three days in a homemade seasoning and served with egg and seaweed. The velvety texture of abalone is achieved by slow steaming with sake and kombu. It is served with abalone liver sauce atop red vinegar–infused rice, the latter a delicious accent and a nod to the chef’s older brother – a highly acclaimed sushi chef. Simple and almost invisible touches like this deliver unforgettable flavors to guests. The soft-shell turtle hot pot is notably uncomplicated, containing only the turtle, yuba, and green onions, but it has a surprising flavor punch you will never forget.

The appeals of this restaurant are aplenty, not least the fact that you can savor the same three-star tuna as served at Sushi Yoshitake. And the wines have all been chosen by Sushi Yoshitake’s sommelier. The sake collection is carefully curated to pair with the delicate flavors of Yoshitake's dashi: Mibu from the chef’s home prefecture of Tochigi, Sawaya Matsumoto from Kyoto, and Miyagi's Hakurakusei Junmai Ginjo.

INGREDIENTS
The chef carefully selects his seasonal seafood and vegetables from suppliers at Toyosu Market, Tokyo's pantry. The beef is Iwate Shorthorn, and the rare pedigree chicken called Hyogo Midori is specially raised on feed containing the premium sake-making rice variety Yamada Nishiki, resulting in a firm texture and rich flavor. The suppon soft-shell turtle is raised in Hamanako in Shizuoka Prefecture. As for the ingredients essential to the chef’s superb dashi, he only uses the absolute best: Rishiri kombu and Makurazaki honkarebushi bonito flakes. Wasabi comes from the picturesque Azumino region of Nagano. While not served in enormous volumes, maguro tuna is of premium quality – the same varieties served at three-star Sushi Yoshitake.