Chef・ Kei Kobayashi
French ｜ Paris, FRANCE
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An incredible delicacy.
A cuisine in pursuit of a pinnacle of excellence.
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His restaurant was the only place on my mind.
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It was at the end of the summer, when the French border controls were relaxed, that I decided to go to Paris.
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Restaurant Kei
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This French gastronomy restaurant became the first Japanese chef’s restaurant in France to be awarded three stars.
It was just before the pandemic lockdown in Paris in 2020.
The chef is Kei Kobayashi.
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It is no secret that the criteria for three stars in France are much stricter than in any other country in the world, so the fact that he is the first Asian to achieve this feat is a great surprise to France.
Since its opening on 3rd March 2011, the path he has taken to reach this point is one that, by any stretch of the imagination, will never be known by anyone.
But for Chef Kobayashi, three stars, or any stars for that matter, are not the end goal, on the contrary, he says that he has finally reached the starting point.
And as I listened to him speak, I felt that his words were true.
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The energy that emanates from the chef who is now 43 years old, the sharpness of his gaze without hesitation, is the same kind of momentum that ambitious young people have, as if they are about to reach for the stars, to go further, to go higher.
It is also a kind of frustration, a kind of uncontrollable energy that overflows from inside of his body.
This force was painfully piercing me.
The more questions I ask, the sharper the edge, the more it glistens.
And yet I also can see a landscape on the other side, like a calm lake, like a deep body of water that is there without a sound.
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“ I think the staff in the kitchen think I’m severe. I tell them that failure is the same as death “
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I smile back, a little jokingly, but Chef Kobayashi looks at me straight in the eye, with even less of a smile on his face than before.
It was then that I realised that, for him, the failure is a real death sentence.
Within the first ten minutes of our first meeting, this word came out of his mouth as a matter of course.
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A few days before I met chef Kobayashi, I had visited the restaurant and dined.
The moment I walked through the door, I was welcomed by the staff as like a warm palm wrapped around me, and I took my seat at the table with nothing but a sense of comfort.
The sommelier, Shigetsugu Kitayama san, creates a flow of wines with his own unique personality.
He is frank and direct, but in fact very compassionate. As I finished my lunch, I realised that he had made it possible for me to have such an enriching time.
It is clear that he, too, has devoted his entire life to this restaurant. Day after day, he has been standing here since the time of the first star.
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When I asked for a wine pairing, I suddenly became very curious about how Kitayama san manages the somewhat frightening task of matching wine to Chef Kobayashi’s cuisine.
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“ There is nothing more difficult than this “
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There was real weight in this word.
What part of a dish that has been perfected to perfection can be matched with the taste of wine?
Because Kobayashi’s cuisine is a harmonious culmination of extreme delicacy.
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The amuse-bouche, “cucumber and miso”, was sensational.
Marinated in vinegar, the cucumber was reminiscent of Japanese pickles, but I have never come across such a marinade dish before, let alone one that is so precise. Even if you had seen such a combination of ingredients in a restaurant somewhere, Chef Kobayashi’s this tiny cucumber stands on completely another altitude. Delicate and translucent. Light and flamboyantly beautiful. It was as if the acidity in my mouth had been detected and adjusted, and there was not a thread of disruption in the balance. How is it possible for a dish like cucumber with vinegar to reach such a ground? From the very beginning, I was struck by the shock.
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The following dishes flowed in a perfect circle, as if to symbolise the Japanese philosophy of harmony.
Palamos shirimps with Shrenki caviar, Shiso, Granny Smith apples and Earl Grey. In this harmony, where nothing is out of place, there is only the slightest suggestion of Shiso. Its scent seems to awaken a part of you.
The signature Vegetable Garden with Lemon Foam. Its flavour varies from spoon to spoon, with each bite bringing a different and powerful tastes, aroma and texture to my taste buds in seconds.
An exquisite Sea bass, cleverly calculated and executed in terms of how far to take the heat.
As for the Scottish Lobster, in addition to the elements mentioned above, it retains its semi-raw, moist texture and a seductive sweet aroma that emerges when heated, making it a perfect expression of the crustacean creature. A masterpiece.
The flavours and Umami of the 100-day aged Spanish Galice Beef, which I hear that the chef himself has visited the farm many times, are so prominent that you are struck by the character of the meat. You can also choose Wagyu beef, the A4 from Kagoshima, to taste not only the fat but also the taste of the red meat.
And the desserts…. Citrus Smoothie and Cotton Candy. The layers of flavours, the balance, that is the lightness of being, finalised in a crystal of a flow. Like the morning sun rising from the horizon, or a strong wind kidnapping the leaves off the trees… I found the change of flavours to be a tremendous pleasure.
Each dish is the culmination of the chef’s thoughts and his long journey; battles, struggles, hesitations, emotion, ruggedness, joy, beauty and love in one form or another.
We put it in our mouth.
And taste it with heart.
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Every ingredient you encounter at Kei, no matter how small, has a value that makes you recognise its importance, that it is part of a special life on this planet.
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The wind,
the air,
the soil,
the rays of light,
the fresh water,
the sea water,
the microorganisms,
the temperature,
the things that flow,
the things that rise,
the things that the ingredients have absorbed into themselves,
and one day, after being gathered by the fisherman or the farmer, they are brought to the kitchen and beautifully presented on the plate, and you taste the remnants of the core of the life that it has lived over the years.
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The combination of several or even dozens of such ingredients, each with its own personality, requires a meticulous preparation.
Chef Kobayashi’s creations are a complex combination of ingredients and seasonings that cannot and do not deviate by even 0.001 millimetres, yet each one has its own meaning and all are in perfect harmony. It was like a perfect symphony played at its most delicate and perilous form. It was a dish to challenge to the very limits of the edge. Walked the tightrope so thin like a thread that you never afford to miss a step…
And yet, there was no sense of tension. There is a tenderness.
I was amazed that such a dish of stillness and softness could come from such a chef, who speaks softly but with an aura of tremendous heat that emanates from his entire body, like a vibration of a fierce fire burning inside.
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On the afternoon I visited at the end of November, Chef Kobayashi had just returned from a trip to Qatar the previous day. He was there with ten of the greatest chefs in France and the world, some of whom are world icons. After spending a few days with them, Chef Kobayashi came back with a renewed sense of direction.
The title of “three-star chef” and the luxury and special treatment he receives now do not deter him from this.
The most important thing, he says, is that each and every customer who comes to the restaurant is an individual and must be respected most.
He wants to give them something that will change their life through his food and the time they spend at Restaurant Kei.
During the one hour and a half interview, the word “heart” came up several times from the chef’s mouth.
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“I want to make time for the heart “
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Chef Kei Kobayashi’s cuisine is like a mirror of our own heart. Are we able to catch, respond to and feel what he throws at us over the course of his life? We can see through it, mercilessly.
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“The battle with the customer”, he said at the beginning of the interview, seemed to me now to be a time of reaction, how we had sensed and sublimated the joys and sorrows that had unfolded in each other’s lives so far.
It is a kind of nuclear fusion.
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When a light emanates in a spectacular way, an explosion of emotion like nothing you have ever experienced rises, on the bone white porcelain.
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While I was thinking about this, an 11 year old boy who had just finished his lunch came up to the chef and said he enjoyed the food and wanted to have a picture with him.
The chef replied, gently and politely and stood up and walked to the table where the boy’s parents are looking at him smiling.
Chef Kobayashi also has an 8 year old son.
I told him that when I took my young sons to a three-star restaurant, they were very good with children, and that it would be nice to have a restaurant like that.
And then he said.
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“ Children cannot understand what I cook. That’s not what I’m looking for “
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My lazy comment about “child-friendly restaurants” was dismissed without hesitation.
And he is right, where is the need to be conscious of this for him?
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“ Children haven’t developed their sensitivity fully yet so I think they need to be a bit older for them to detect what I am expressing, hopefully“
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Still though, I’ll never forget the 11 year old’s innocent expression relaying that the child had a wonderful time, one that he will remember for the rest of his life.
Chef Kobayashi’s desire to create a time that appeals to the heart had already reached beyond the “difficult” plate to the child’s inner self.
Perhaps, it’s the human being himself who resides in this restaurant, and the all the people, young and old, men and women, who are irresistibly drawn to it, come back to look for something very special.
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In the end, the value of a restaurant is in the chef, in the soul of the person.
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Whether there is “a something” in the human being, or not.
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And, Kei Kobayashi has it.
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Written by Naoko Shimizu Jeffries
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Restaurant Kei
www.restaurant-kei.fr
5 Rue Coq Héron, 75001 Paris
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