Shunju: New Japanese Cuisine Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Charlie Trotter may be super hyped, but don't let that dissuade you from picking this one off a shelf and at least look at it first. I was turned off when I misunderstood an earlier review stating that "Both authors are not chefs but designers..". While this is true, the chefs who performed these amazing dishes mini bios are in the back of the book. I think there were 4 different chefs. Many of the recipes are "sublime" to say the least, and some of the ingredients are almost impossible to find in most of the US. For example fresh bamboo shoots, matsutake mushrooms, and kinome sprigs. This book is probably useless for the casual reader, but someone immersed or interested in the culture and cuisine will find it a creative reference. I should know, I'm a Japanese-trained Chef working in the US. For other power references more with more accessible ingredients look to works by Thomas Keller "Bouchon" and Alain Ducasse's work. Pick one up and flip through it first to see if it's useful to you.

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Shunju: New Japanese Cuisine takes you on a tour of the restaurants at the forefront of Japan's cooking revolution. Designer Takashi Sugimoto has revolutionized the act of dining in Japan, and Masano Kawana's award-winning photography portrays the experience in vibrant color. Shunju: New Japanese Cuisine brings you the experience of dining at one of Tokyo's most innovative and exciting restaurants: Shunju. Everything about the Shunju restaurants is unique — their design, decoration, and lighting — and especially the cuisine. At the Shunju restaurants the menu changes with the seasons and the specials change daily depending on what is available from the market. The chefs choose from hand-picked farmed and wild vegetables that arrive each morning. The food, though quintessentially Japanese, is fresh and innovative, with unexpected touches from other cuisines.The restaurants' designs are modern, funky, and often quite bizarre. Sugimoto, the famed interior designer, has incorporated such unusual installations as original sidewalk gratings from the London subway and hand plastered mud walls. In this way, the designs represent the new lifestyle philosophy of Japan's urban, cultivated youth: that within the chaotic city of design and food, more value should be placed on nature and time, on the textures of genuine materials, the flavors of natural foods. Shunju won the 2004 James Beard award for Photography in a Cookbook for its stunning color images, shot throughout the four seasons. The modern recipes are as beautiful in presentation as they are to taste, making Shunju: New Japanese Cuisine a must for both professional chefs and dedicated amateurs.

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