Hirohisa Koyama
Philosophy and sea bream
By Laurent Feneau

Preparing fish like a Zen monk performing a sacred ritual, Hirohisa Koyama has invented a new Japanese cuisine by transcending the precepts of several centuries of culinary tradition. On the art of meditating in the kitchen …

Acknowledged in Japan as one of the greatest chefs of his time, Hirohisa Koyama manages several restaurants on the archipelago and teaches his cooking at the Heisei professional cookery school. Very media-oriented, he also writes a cookery article in the important daily Asahi Shimbun and regularly appears on the NHK national television channel. More than a mere vocation, cooking is truly second nature to this enthusiast who admits to having cooked his first dish at the age of five … As an adolescent, he trained in Osaka and Kyoto before taking over the family restaurant "Aoyagi" created by his grandfather on the island of Shikoku almost a century ago. Very modestly, Hirohisa Koyama uses three words to describe his cooking "simple, good and beautiful". As a definition, it is clearly a little minimalist but perfectly well describes the culinary approach of this atypical chef for whom "cooking consists in showing off the product - which is fish more often than not - and discarding anything that it superfluous". In his country, where he is regarded as a "classic" chef and, sometimes, a great innovator, he easily admits to "taking pleasure in reviving certain gestures from the past such as dissecting an eel in 24 knife movements, so that no piece of the fish is bigger than a thumb"!

The content and the form
You will have understood that Mr. Koyama keenly defends Japanese culinary tradition. "The basis of my work is the "Cha kaiseki" which is the name of the meal that accompanies the tea ceremony", he tells us. During this ceremony, the tea master welcomes his guests and shares the food he has prepared with them. Everything is based on this concept of hospitality and of a meal prepared and served at home. "Even today, cooks do their best to preserve this approach which is why, up until very recently, there were no truly professional chefs in Japan", added the chef from the Land of the Rising Sun. Although the tea ceremony is regarded as an art in its own right, our chef also maintains that he is an artist. "A cook is above all a craftsman who produces something "ephemeral" and it is because of this idea of fragility that cooking, in this sense, transcends all existing art forms", he points out. That which is short-lived is in fact an extremely important concept because it forms part of the very concept of Japanese beauty, including cooking. This does not mean that Japanese cuisine, which is famous for its very aesthetic and harmonious side, places form over content. Quite the opposite. "The concept of beautiful as part of cooking is not set in stone because flavour, that is to say content, is equally important", stresses Hirohisa Koyama.
And that is why the quality of the produce is important and, in Japan, is often a constant whether we are dealing with standard or 'haute' cuisine. In this context, sea bream is this chef's favourite product. He admits that he learned to cook through this fish". A preference that sometimes takes on the hues of a pure and intransigent culture … The latest news was that this lover of good produce had left his hundred year old restaurant and had moved to Naruto, in the hollow Shikoku Island pan handle, where, according to him, the best sea bream in the world are fished! If Mr. Koyama has devoted his life to "beautiful fish", that does not mean to say that he cooks with just one product. He also likes to take a few liberties occasionally and willingly improvises. For instance, out of season, he replaces scallops with Tokushima earshells that owe their particularly iodine flavour to their food, Kombu, an algae found in the sea off Naruto.

In the kitchen with Ducasse and Robuchon…
Even though he defends it body and soul, Japanese cuisine is not an end in itself for our chef who takes a very keen interest in all the cuisines of the world and, more especially, French 'haute gastronomie'. What are his views on the latter? "The grass is always greener on the other side", he likes to quote. "French cuisine is an addition while Japanese kitchen is more of a subtraction", he adds in more serious vein. And then goes on to elaborate: "however, French cuisine is currently undergoing a "refining" phenomenon with a tendency to seek out the essential. Conversely, we are now beginning to use products that we had not used before". Hirohisa Koyama is all the more knowledgeable about his subject because he maintains very close links with France and with the French restaurant professionals. His guiding light is no other than Auguste Escoffier! Furthermore, Ducasse and Robuchon whose kitchens he had the honour of visiting, are his favourite French chefs. "I tried out Alain Ducasse's fish knife. It was perfect … ", jokes the chef before admitting that his best professional memory is one that could not connect him more closely to France, the country that awarded him, a few years ago, the Chevalier des Arts medal! "Clearly, I am delighted but above all, envious of the French who had the idea and the courage to decorate a foreign chef. This would be inconceivable in Japan", regrets our subject. Therefore, it is because of his love of France that our Japanese chef teaches Japanese cooking there, especially at the Ferrandi school where he can be found several times a year. "I like these exchanges and I like to rub shoulders with these young chefs because their questions stretch me beyond what I already know how to do", he confides. Between his restaurants and teaching, the famous Japanese chef has very little time to devote to his pastimes. Hirohisa Koyama exclusively devotes his rare moments of relaxation to swimming because, according to him "you need to be really fit to cook well". Here again, content and form…

"My plate is the image of this meeting with a history which reflects my experience and my life. All that I do immediately becomes part of this past without which no progress is possible. Without continuity, the present ceases to exist. Change and continuity exist hand-in-hand. That is my philosophy as a cook. That is my trade".
Hirohisa Koyama

Top