TORONTO: A thing of beauty

When I say Japanese food, you probably think sushi or teriyaki. It’s both the good and the bad of sushi’s popularity that you can now get it anywhere from your corner store to the mall. But as the Globe and Mail’s restaurant reviewer Joanne Kates wrote: “Japanese food is one of the world’s most refined and complex cuisines, acutely sensitive to seasonal changes, and full of symbolism and metaphor.”

That’s exactly what Kaiseki-Sakura is all about. It’s like hearing a symphony orchestra for the first time, the sounds of each instrument swirling around to enchant you in your seat, layering note upon note to create something unpredictably beautiful.

Kaiseki literally means “stone in the stomach” and refers to 16th-century Buddhist monks tucking hot stones wrapped into towels in to their robes to ward off hunger during their morning and afternoon prayers. It came to refer to the simple vegetarian meal served after a tea ceremony.

Today, it is an art form that balances taste, texture and appearance using local, fresh ingredients to showcase the flavours and colours of each season.

Let us be clear, Kaiseki-Sakura is not a sushi joint even though its location across from a Pizza Pizza outlet at Church and Wellesley can be misleading.

There is an à la carte menu but to truly savour the chef’s art, choose an omakase tasting menu which changes every season. Five courses is $60, six $80 and seven $100. We opted for the six-course menu with two of us also ordering the accompanying sake pairings ($30).

The chef sends out an amuse-bouche of tofu made of chesnut paste with persimmon and pomegranate — and we know this is going to be truly unique. The bartender pairs that with a refreshing lychee-flavoured sake.

Our tasting begins with four deceivingly tiny teapots, filled with dashi stock with mitsuba herb (wild Japanese parsley), matsutake mushrooms and conger eel. Our server explains to flip the cup off the top of the teapot, pour the soup, and then squeeze some key lime into it. It’s delicate and fragrant — and plentiful, filling our cups more than half a dozen times. Raised pinky finger optional.

The summer nights fading into fall evenings arrives on our table with a sashimi plate decorated with orange sweet-potato maple leaves and curled ribbons of daikon and red and yellow beets. Succulent seared lobster is drizzled with garlic oil and ponzu sauce, while an exquisite piece of sea bass is wrapped in konbu (edible kelp).

The raw fish is escorted by a fresh piece of wasabi root and a mini-grater. This is nothing like the green mound of wasabi paste most of us are used to. Fresh, grated wasabi does not have elicit that sinus-singeing numbness, but gives off a milder snap of hot and sharp.

A cucumber sake drink is paired with the sashimi but after that, I lose track, trying to keep up with all the new flavours I’m experiencing.

A bounty of fall colours plays out in our main course. Paper-thin slices of fried sweet potato are cut into the shapes of leaves, with the tips of some even fading from orange to yellow. The plate had so many elements we had to ask our serve to repeat some of the ingredients. As much as I was able to scribble down, there was:

• pheasant-wrapped pumpkin
• scallop dumpling with cream cheese
• grilled salmon
• sweet potato dumpling
• something with uni (sea urchin roe)
• egg yolk marinated in miso paste.

A short glass of plum wine gelatin serves as part palate-cleanser, part tongue-tingler. The wine’s kick is balanced with the layered sweetness of cherry tomatoes, baby mistuba herb and diced Asian pear.

Next comes delicious slices of duck breast with fig tempura and eggplant with chrysanthemum. The duck is full of flavour but the fig tempura is utterly enchanting, the soft sweet fruit played up with the crunchy batter. I kept eying Kevin’s piece but he ate it too quickly and Gigi’s bowl was out of my reach. Darn.

The chef then sends out a ridiculously tender hunk of beef tongue in red miso sauce and French baguette to soak up the sauce. This wasn’t the prettiest dish but it was delicious.

Any worries we had about the ability of the delicate dishes to fill our stomachs accustomed to North American portions vanishes because suddenly we are full. Our eyes and our tummies filled with art.

A final sweet note plays with a dessert plate of red bean papaya mint pie, green tea mousse and black sesame cookie.

Maestro Daisuke Izutsu, former chef to the Japanese consul-general, comes out of the kitchen to bid us farewell. It’s nice to meet the person behind the masterpieces.

EnRoute magazine just named Kaiseki-Sakura one of the next 20 restaurants of 2007. This is definitely a place for special occasions or special guests — unless of course, you’re independently wealthy, have a generous corporate account, or your mother feels like picking up the tab. (Thanks, Mom!)

Kaiseki-Sakura, 556 Church St., Toronto, (416) 923-1010. Dinner only, closed Tuesdays and holidays. Hours and more info here.

Tags: fine dining, Japanese