SCALING THE HIGHS OF SHINSHU CUISINE

Chef Masahiro Tanabe of Hikariya Nishi, a Relais & Châteaux-listed modern French restaurant in Nagano, brings out the best of Japanese alpine ingredients that are nurtured by time.

- TEXT TAN PIN YEN

Using wild sansai (mountain vegetables) foraged at dawn and heirloom greens from alpine farms, chef Masahiro Tanabe serves his Nature French risotto with a whopping 54 varieties of greens from Nagano's slopes.

This dish does not just celebrate terroir - it is terroir.

At Hikariya Nishi, a modern French restaurant in Nagano, the executive chef of Tobira Group, which runs it, makes a powerful statement with the first course of his Wellness Gastronomy menu.

Vegetables, harvested just hours before and timed to peak at service, erupted from a hand-thrown ceramic vessel. Its rough texture and earthy hue mirrored the very soil the vegetables came from, creating a profound connection from earth to plate in the Relais & Châteaux gem in the castle town of Matsumoto, the second largest city in the prefecture.

Vegetables are the soul of Shinshu cuisine, which takes after the former name of Nagano, recently popularised as a skiing destination.

“Shinshu’s cuisine is defined by the flavour of water — crystal-clear streams and alpine spring water — infuse vegetables with unparalleled freshness and vibrancy,” says Tanabe, who has worked in Lyon.

"These vegetables are truly unique to Nagano; their fragrance is vivid, and when you bite into them, it feels as though pure water is springing forth."

Nagano boasts Japan’s richest diversity of traditional vegetable varieties, a testament to centuries of alpine farming traditions. Diurnal temperature swings of 15 deg C or more stress plants out but also concentrate sugars, amplifying flavours and making vegetables especially tasty.

In the last 20 years, Tanabe has been championing Japan’s most exquisite ingredients, nurtured by Nagano’s crisp mountain air and pristine waters, into thoughtful plates.