How to have a real Kaiseki experience in Makati

MANILA, Philippines - Despite several trips to Japan in the past, we’ve never had a kaiseki meal there. That’s because it’s usually seemed inaccessible, pricey, and we’re always in a rush. Kaiseki relies on seasonal local ingredients, and is best enjoyed with an expansive amount of time spent in a beautiful setting.

Now that chance to enjoy a real kaiseki experience has come to Manila, thanks to Kyo-to, a quietly hidden restaurant located at Coyiuto House on Carlos Palanca Street in Legazpi Village, Makati.

You don’t normally associate busy Makati with a rarefied Japanese dining experience, but Kyo-to stays true to tradition. Set behind an unassuming blonde-wood door (right beneath the Prudential Insurance sign), a narrow hallway opens up to the main dining areas of this 40-seater; behind the central screen there’s a kappo — a chef’s table seating 10 where Kyoto-born chef Ryohei Kawamoto is dazzling patrons with sashimi preparation. All other dining areas are divided into private rooms by sliding screens, for couples up to groups of 24.

According to Kyo-to project manager Yasuo Takatsugu, the elaborate kaiseki menu goes back to samurai times, born from the formal Buddhist tea ceremony held by monks to welcome samurai leaders and wealthy businessmen, followed by simple temple food.

“The temple had no budget for serving food, so in winter they gave you a hot stone to put in your pocket to warm you,” Takatsugu says. “Kai is ‘pocket,’ seki is ‘stone.’ So giving hospitality turned to giving a hot stone: kaiseki. It’s a symbol of hospitality.”

That humble practice worked its way into the culture of secular Japan, and simple monk’s cooking evolved into the kaiseki we know today as professional cooks focused on and enlarged the food aspect, offering a more refined brand of hospitality to important guests.

Kaiseki also relies on other Japanese concepts: shun, or seasonality — how Japanese chefs are obsessed with the best ingredients but have the patience to wait till they’re at the peak of their quality; ichigo ichie, which means “one opportunity, one encounter,” and inspires chef Kawamoto’s personal relationship with each patron at Kyo-to (“Be there one hundred guests or just one, it doesn’t matter. Kaiseki is a conversation we have with each guest”), and finally, wabi sabi, the Zen Buddhist philosophy of finding beauty in imperfection.

Today seasonality, locality and multicourse degustation menus have been popularized by French haute cuisine and chefs like Chez Panisse’s organic pioneer Alice Waters to global forager Rene Redzepi of Noma, but it’s worth recalling that seasonal multicourse menus existed centuries before in Japan. 

Since kaiseki is the highest expression of Japanese gastronomy, we sat in anticipation for that night’s Kyo-to appetizer — Hokkaido crab with cucumber vinegar jelly, ikura (salmon roe bathed in dashi broth), and crab miso — served on exquisite tableware that chef Kawamoto collects personally. Each item on the five-course menu is plated on something extremely special: over 20 years the chef has amassed some 1,000 pieces of porcelain, glass and ceramic. Sometimes he doesn’t even rely on his collection but his creativity — he served the Hokkaido crab in its own shell, making for a bright, enlivening opener.

This was followed by chawanmushi topped with uni (sea urchin), spinach and popped rice. We dug hidden treasures from the generous portion of steamed egg custard: more chunks of Hokkaido crab, in case the first serving wasn’t enough. (It wasn’t.) Savory met creamy, with various briny flavors from the sea colliding on our tongues: a luscious second course.

Next came an array of fresh sashimi in a flower bowl with five compartments. Our server suggested starting from the top right compartment — which contained steamed abalone very lightly seasoned with teriyaki sauce — and working our way clockwise, encountering plushy salmon, delicate scallops, and firm ika (cuttlefish) along the way before ending with buttery, heavenly toro (fatty tuna belly).

Ninety percent of Kyo-to’s fish comes from Japan, so the level of freshness and authenticity is topnotch. Naturally, because of its imported ingredients, Kyo-to’s kaiseki menu is not cheap (the price of a five-course meal averages out to a little over P5,000), but it does offer something unique and special amid the thicket of ramen houses and katsudon joints that populate Metro Manila.

Between courses, we learned more about the chef, who spent eight years perfecting his skills at Kitcho, one of Japan’s kaiseki institutions. There he eventually earned the highest honor of preparing mukozuke, the sliced seasonal sashimi that is a Kitcho highlight. He next spent two years learning how to select and buy fish at Tsukiji Market in Tokyo before being lured to the Philippines as a personal chef to the Japanese ambassador, for whom he worked for three years.

Chef Kawamoto’s dream of opening his own restaurant came true when he was hired to helm Kyo-to. Every day he does his own marketing here in Manila, and is quite secretive about his dealers and suppliers. His insistence on the best extends to his knives, which were custom-made for him by Aritsugu, and clay rice pot (gohan-nabe), which was handcrafted by Japan’s premier earthenware artist, Ippento Nakagawa.

Japanese rice is already worth throwing over your no-carb diet for, but chef Kawamoto’s clay pot-steamed rice is in a league of its own. Cooked over an open flame in only purified water, the rice’s true flavors are coaxed out by this near-magical pot. Its even distribution of heat imbues each grain with an ideal level of moisture that allows a clump of it to be lifted with chopsticks without falling apart. It’s perfect when paired with a main course like kinmedai (golden-eyed red snapper). For this dish, while others were served two generous slices of snapper fillet, Scott was presented with the head as well; undeterred, he worked his way around the jaws and gills and then extracted the eyeball, which he said tasted “like balut egg,” though harder and slightly chalkier. According to chef Kawamoto, the head is highly prized by the Japanese as it contains the “essences” — gels, fat and muscles — all concentrated in the face of the fish. And yes, people do eat the eyeball.

Kyo-to prides itself on following the Japanese seasons. Not only does the chef change ingredients from month to month, he also changes methods of cooking. At present, which is spring-summer in Japan, he’s doing more grilling, using more fresh vegetables, while the “ber” months call for more warming comfort foods like stews and hot pot. The Japanese view kaiseki’s changing menus as a “progression.”

Our dessert was ice cream, mochi balls and a dollop of red bean paste sprinkled with green tea powder and kinako (roasted soy flour). It was a sweet finish to a meal that was best appreciated in a calm, hospitable haven just beyond the reach of Makati’s snarling traffic and hectic frenzy.

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Kyo-to is located on the ground floor of Coyiuto House, 119 C. Palanca St., Legazpi Village, Makati. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., it’s best to call in advance for a reservation at 805-7743.