Other chefs may proclaim luxurious ingredients such as foie gras and wagyu as their signature dishes, but for executive chef Shinobu Namae, it is the humble turnip that best represents him.
“The turnip is an underrated vegetable in France, it is even used as animal feed and often not a main focus of a dish,”he notes. “But I want to put focus on it to appreciate its humble taste.”
Turnip has been on the menu at his two Michelin-starred L’Effervescence in Tokyo, Japan since day one, in a dish named A Fixed Point. The turnip is cooked for four hours and then seared in brown butter, accompanied with brioche croutons and crumbled Iberian ham.
He was in Singapore early last month for a “four hands”dinner with Bacchanalia’s head chef Ivan Brehm. The two met when they were working at The Fat Duck in 2008. The Yokohama-born chef returned to Tokyo to open a restaurant when the opportunity cropped up. L’Effervescence, which opened in 2010, is also ranked No 12 on the Asia’s Best 50 Restaurants list. Chef Namae describes his cuisine as modern French –“food cooked using French cooking techniques but with Japanese flavours”, he explains. “I am Japanese, and I want to acknowledge my palate and background.”
Vegetables feature widely on his menu, even if they are not apparent. He ponders and then announces that a diner would have tasted 150 varieties of vegetables at the end of meal, from Jerusalem artichoke to kabosu and burdock. He declares that L’Effervescence has the highest variety of vegetables on its menu compared with other French restaurants in Tokyo.
But why so many vegetables? “I want to support the local vegetable farmers,”he says. “They like growing all kinds of vegetables, and if there is no demand for them, they may just stop growing. I accept any kinds of vegetables.”
He personally visits the farmers, and will work with those whom he gets on well with, regardless of the quality of vegetables. Personal relationships are crucial to him as a chef. “My relationship with the farmers is more important than the taste of the vegetable,”he adds.
Outside of work, Chef Namae cooks, but when it comes to personal favourite foods, he doesn’t have one particular favourite. Instead, it depends on the season. In spring, he enjoys wild mountain vegetables; in summer, it is the ayu fish; in autumn, he likes mushrooms, and come winter, he enjoys a hotpot.
It is much like his menu at the restaurant, which changes with every season. Strawberries are in season now, and he’s working on using them for a new dessert. After he creates a new dish, the sommelier gets a taste of it, to find a complementary wine. Next, his other chefs and servers sample the dish. “I see their reaction. Sometimes they break into a smile, other times, it is silence,”he says. “For every one success, there are 10 failures.”
Perhaps, then, Chef Namae is being true to his Japanese roots when he says humbly: “I see myself as a work in progress.”
Adapted from The Business Times:
