Something Old, Something New: A Taste of Time in Kyoto
It’s an hour before opening and the streets in the Fushimi Ward, Kyoto are quiet and empty. Slightly lifting the noren and entering through doors with vertical wooden lattices along the front, the apparently low and discreet façade opens up to a complex maze of dining rooms and gardens.
Time seems to slow down as I enter our booked room, my feet feeling the slightly uneven yet smooth texture of the tatami floors. Airy bamboo screens lead towards an interior garden, framing the swaying green leaves under the mellow glow of floral-shaped lamps. As one surveys the views, a ritualistic procession takes place – you are guided to sit down, gaze at the black lacquered tables and seasonal adornments, and wait as anticipation and tranquillity blend into one another.
Clothed in 260 years of history, Uosaburo is a traditional, family-run Japanese restaurant offering an elegant sequencing of kaiseki courses in harmony with its historic architecture. Whilst kaiseki cuisine is often compared as the Japanese version of Western fine dining, it still holds its unique charm, prioritising ingredients’ diversity and freshness, respect for their inherent flavours, and ensuring a well-balanced, wholesome diet. Designed not for excess but for equilibrium, each course speaks to nourishment as much as refinement. As part of washoku (’traditional Japanese cuisine’), which was recognised as an UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2013, kaiseki brings together seasonality, well-being, tradition, and an abundance of meditative pauses.
Araki Yuichiro, the tenth-generation head of family and the current ‘young owner’ of Uosaburo, greets us as various equipment and foodstuffs are laid out across the table – we are fortunate to have an exclusive session before our kaiseki meal, on how Uosaburo utilises its location in the Fushimi ward with good water supply to craft its distinctive stock soup (dashi) used in various dishes. At once a simple term, something that every household seems to employ for convenience, Uosaburo’s dashi making soon reveals deeper implications on how time is encapsulated and savoured in Japanese culture.
Dashi is present in almost all dishes in a kaiseki meal, most prominently in the futamono (’lidded dish’, usually a soup) as well as in takiawase (simmered ingredients) and yakimono (grilled food). However, its ubiquity is countered by locality, as every region’s restaurants have their own methods of making dashi.
The two crucial ingredients in dashi are kombu, a kind of edible kelp, and katsuobushi – preserved, fermented skipjack tuna shavings. Both are from the sea, a decision that reflects Japan’s geographic context, and knowledge of longevity: a dietary culture that minimises animal fats to prevent obesity and health issues. At Uosaburo, only the best kombu from Hokkaido, the northern regions of Japan, is used. The specific volcanic geology and nutrient-rich seawater yield high-quality kelp with a rich, umami-rich flavour. Packed with iodine, dietary fibre, and essential minerals, kombu is more than a flavouring agent – it embodies the quiet way in which Japanese cuisine aligns pleasure with well-being. The first step of brewing dashi thus involves slowly simmering such kombu in local water for about an hour, a process that appears simple, but requires tacit knowledge and patience.
As Yuichiro explains, whilst most people see Japanese cuisine as prioritising freshness above everything, like the beautiful slices of sashimi laid out over crushed ice, traditional Japanese cooking also highlights the importance of taking time. The kombu for dashi must undergo a thorough ageing process. ‘It’s like making wine,’ he comments, drawing links between kaiseki and the long history of wine-brewing in the Fushimi ward, ‘the kombu gains a richer, softer taste over time.’
To fully obtain the matured kombu’s umami that forms the fundamental taste of the dashi, the ingredient is simmered in hot water of precisely 60 degrees Celsius. Neither boiling nor chilling, this temperature locks in the umami, just like searing the four sides of the meat when cooking steaks. Allowing the kombu to cook gently for an hour, and one is rewarded with a clear broth with an elegant, savoury flavour profile.
Now onto the next step. The heat increases to around 90 degrees, and the katsuobushi shavings are immediately added to the stock. These delicate, pinkish flakes will remain in the liquid for 40 to 50 seconds before they are removed using a sieve – the resulting broth is called the ‘first course’. It is rather surprising how much can be changed by adding katsuobushi only for a quick moment: the broth, gaining a deeper hue, now showcases a satisfying fullness with wisps of smoky saltiness. It gives a lovely balance between the clean umami and piquant meaty flavour, offering indulgence with mindful, nutritious nourishment. The sieved shavings can be added back to the soup for a second time, creating a ‘second course’ broth.
As such, Uosaburo’s dashi making emphasises the subtle awareness of temporality in cooking. It juxtaposes prolonged periods of maturation and simmering with the swift, calculated additions of katsuobushi. These all require non-verbal knowledge of hands-on experience, not unlike Italian Renaissance masters grinding glass with pigments to craft glowing blues on canvases and frescoes, or Chinese jade-carvers moulding characters and motifs over rounded raw stones. Ultimately, it all comes down to centuries of craftsmanship, and an acute understanding of where we situate ourselves in the course of time and space.
Here, it seems necessary to briefly discuss the theme of seasons in kaiseki dining. Whilst overall the brewing of dashi suggests something aged, refined, and slowly cooked to perfection under centuries of knowledge, the heightened attention on seasonality focuses on bringing out the newest and freshest ingredients as we hastily march through days and months.
As aforementioned, sashimi offers a stereotypical image of fresh ingredients and immediacy. Yet, the Japanese approach to cooking with the season’s top-quality produce reaches beyond this. Chefs identify what to eat across the year using the concepts of hashiri (first of the season), sakari (the ripest or the best), and nagori (last of the harvest). For instance, in our starter course or hassun featuring several smaller seasonal dishes, ginkgo nuts foraged early appear as a pleasing dash of vibrant green. Usually harvested in autumn when ginkgo leaves turn golden, these early fruits, only available for an extremely short period, bear a softer, chewy texture that mixes sweetness with a bitter tinge. Prepared simply without additional flavouring, the green ginkgo nuts gracefully allude to the end of August and the beginning of a cooling season.
Other dishes reveal a more rapid pace of temporal change and how chefs diligently capture these differences in cooking. Our yakimono course is all about ayu, or sweet fish in English, which is only in season for a period of 10 days in late August. To fully embrace and heighten this occasional delight, all parts of the fish are retained and grilled, topped off with a sprinkle of salt over the crisp crust. The resulting taste is a rich harmony of savoury bitterness, tender fish flesh and crunchy fins.
This deep appreciation of flowing time is made more evident in the room we are dining in. Late August calls for feeling the last summer heat and anticipating the red leaves and autumnal winds – a theme that is tasted in the kaiseki courses, and experienced visually and tactilely by our human bodies in the designated space.
Inside the tokonoma, an alcove within traditional Japanese rooms that displays floral and scroll arrangements, a glazed slender vase holds three stems of purple gentians, an ink painting of ripe pomegranate by Ryūsei Kishida behind. The flowers traditionally bloom between late August to November, whilst the light blue vase recalls lapping waves, thus illustrating a calming image of seasonal transition, subtly enveloping us into a cooling end of summer. The ninth-generation head of family, Araki Sigeo, explains that these arrangements are replaced frequently to showcase our human relationship to nature, while for occasions such as birthdays and celebratory events, the chosen ornaments will reflect specific connotations. ‘We have a massive storage for every kind of decorative objects,’ the elder owner says, as we continue to explore the room in awe.
Smooth lacquered tabletops slip through fingers, the sheer texture of hanging textiles with wavy patterns draping down from racks like playful rivers. The undulating surface of wooden latticework and the translucent washi paper screens bond joyously with various lamps to craft a glowing atmosphere as dark night descends over the roofs. The room whispers of a long tradition that respects the natural cycle of the year.
From seasonal produce, ritualistic dashi brewing, to the ever-shifting interior as the day goes by, Uosaburo’s practices unveil kaiseki as more than just a Japanese fine dining experience – it bridges and balances temporal spaces, and invites a journey that explores the allure of both the past and present. It asks for a meditative pause, but at the same time, immediacy and a pursuit for the prime and fresh.
https://www.uosaburo.com/english/english.html
For more information on washoku: https://www.jetro.go.jp/en/jfoodo/washoku.html
