Chef's Isle
French chefs on a mission to preserve Japan's disappearing culinary techniques and defend Japanese artisanal cuisine
Hey, I’m Casey. Thanks for reading our newsletter, sharing the startup journey of Kamui Whisky K.K. We’ve been busy, but when we aren’t overwhelmed, we’ll share a story as we craft up a whisky distillery on a remote, volcanic island in the most northern part of Japan.
Cancelled flights. Snow. Wind bending the snow sideways. Stranded ferries. Waiting for a day, or two, or three to make the trip to Rishiri.
That’s the challenge to get to our island in the current season.
But back a couple of months ago, when it was high tourist season on Rishiri1, we had several world class chefs come by the distillery. Not all at once, but one here, two there.
These are James Beard winning, Iron Chef winning, best-selling book chefs. Seriously talented chefs. With serious chops.
And many of these chefs made a stop at Kamui Whisky K.K.
A Chef’s Reaction
Having world class chefs come visit is a bit frightening.
They know their way around food. They know their way around taste. They clearly know what is good and what is not. The fear of somehow finding our way into their later category, in a high stakes moment, when they taste our Kamui Genshu found its way into my gut.
After we’d walk them through the full tour, when it came time for them to taste our Kamui Genshu, it feels high stakes. Will they like it? Will their refined pallets reject it? Say it is lacking in some way?
Maybe it’s just insidious imposter syndrome making its presence felt.
But, to a man2, the reaction was appreciation. Respect for the quality.
Several compared our Genshu to a refined grappa.
Many of the chefs left saying they wanted to stay in touch, to do something together with us in the future. They appreciated our craft, dedicated approach to making high quality whisky, trying to express the terroir of Rishiri.
Two Special French Chefs
Jean-Philippe3 and Jean4 came to visit for several days.
Two wonderful people on meaningful missions.
A key part of their trip was to film our story at Kamui Whisky K.K. for the Collège Culinaire. College Culinaire is a small invite-only, membership group of top producers and chefs in Japan. Started and inspired by Alain Ducasse, there are about 80 members in Japan.
Their mission with College Culinaire is the “defense of artisanal cuisine involving close ties between restaurants and local agriculture and fishery, as well as the transmission of know how to younger generations.”
In the Japanese context it means meeting a soy sauce producer in Shodoshima who learned the disappearing craft of making barrels to let the soy sauce mature. It’s helping to preserve these disappearing techniques, is the essence of what they are trying to achieve.
I and Kamui Whisky K.K. were invited to become members5. Our story coincides with College Culinaire’s mission. They wanted to capture that. Here is the video:
More International Kids
My kids are growing up with a distillery as part of their life. When they are in Rishiri they get nature, and freedom, and different values compared to when they are in the city.
But a surprise exposure is that they would pick up a love for a new language in Rishiri. By the end of Jean-Philippe and Jean’s trip my kids were excitably saying “Bonjour” and other French phrases every chance they got. Today, months later, I’m still treated to morning a “Bonjour” from my 5 year old.
They keep asking when those French Chefs will be back.
A Growing Food Culture
Rishiri has been a place of exquisite, best-in-the-world food. Sea urchin and Konbu were, and are, our two leading foods that are the best in the world. Now Whisky is in that mix. We still have to become the best in the world like our fellow island producers of konbu and sea urchin. We will get there.
Now we’ve got a newly refurbished restaurant in town with ambition. They want to win Rishiri’s first start, be a Michelin starred restaurant, Unballon.
Our two French Chefs shared in our love of Rishiri. By the end of the trip we were dreaming to have a cooking school on the island, run by top chefs, targeted at kids. To develop a new generation of highly skilled culinary workers from Rishiri.
We have the raw ingredients. Now we need to build the skill on the island to put those together in ever more sophisticated, tasty, and artisanal ways. With the help of our chef friends we made this year, and the many chefs that will come to Rishiri in the future, we have a chance to build an exquisite, unique food culture in this remote part of Japan.
About 140,000 tourists visit Rishiri each year. Basically, they come in just a 4 month span of the year: https://www.souya.pref.hokkaido.lg.jp/fs/6/1/1/7/3/0/3/_/令和元年度(2019年度)宗谷管内市町村観光入込客数調査結果.pdf
We’d like to see many more women chefs come visit!
CEO of Alain Ducasse Japan, https://www.ducasse-paris.com
Jean is also the author of a fantastic cookbook of recipes from Nice. Each recipe has a write up of its history, and a story of its place in society. Beautifully drawn as well. A great gift: https://amzn.asia/d/ea3pbfR
Not a crowd my previous business experiences had me interacting with much. Now all of a sudden, I’m in the highest echelons of cuisine networks in Japan. It’s super cool the opportunities craft whisky has presented me.