Hokkaido: at the Agriscape table with chef Kaori Yoshida, from farm to fork

In Vladivostok, spring is late. It's mid-June, and asparagus season is in full swing on this northern Japanese island known for its abundant snow from October to April. If the Japanese love Hokkaido so much, it is undoubtedly because its cool climate, including summer, and its gentle terrain take them far from the rest of the archipelago. Among the island's exports, wood, beer, dairy products, excellent quality rice, fish caught in the Sea of ​​Okhotsk… There is also a wine-growing region in the surroundings of the capital. , Sapporo, whose vintages are the delight of amateurs. But beyond the tourist clichés, Hokkaido is an island full of mysteries where bears roam the forest, spirits are never far away and Ainu culture (an indigenous people) resurfaces here and there. Is it possible to bet on almost complete autonomy in such a harsh climate? This is the challenge taken up by chef Kaori Yoshida. On the heights of Sapporo, a fifteen-minute drive from the city center, the landscape is transformed, greenhouses and fields follow one another. Among the twenty farms, a project called Agriscape combines a restaurant. “It all started with our onion supplier,” says the chef who previously worked in a French cuisine restaurant in Sapporo. One day, he announced to us that he was going to retire and was ceasing his activity. There was no buyer and we said to ourselves that this was an opportunity to launch our own productions by imagining a circular project. I wanted to work differently, to produce the food I was going to cook. »

As we bite by bit, we wander through this harsh and beautiful nature.

Self-sufficiency and gathering

It was in California, where she perfected her English, that Kaori trained in the culinary arts and discovered healthy food, organic food and the “farm to table” phenomenon… “In 2019, we started with edible flowers and vegetables,” she explains, moving through the rows of cosmos, marigolds, pansies and blueberries. Very quickly a breeding of black-legged chickens was added (400 animals per year), in a henhouse well defended against foxes and raccoons, as well as goats and sheep for milk and cheeses, then three hives for honey. The next step was black-skinned Berkshire pigs transforming Agriscape kitchen scraps into tender meat. “On our two hectares, we manage to produce 90% of the ingredients we cook,” explains the chef. Beyond the farm, what characterizes this project is also the importance of the wild harvests of Kaori and her team. “The Japanese consume a lot of shoots, leaves and fruits harvested in the countryside and the forest. We are lucky to be near the woods and, every morning, we stock up on products that are then included in our menus. » Maple syrup, bamboo or fern shoots, wild mugwort, butterbur, mushrooms, watercress, wild garlic or a duck hunted by the chef are added to the farm's products. At Agriscape, nothing is lost, ever. In the mini-grocery store and its café, people rush to stock up on homemade miso, sausages, fresh or pickled eggs, marinated daikon, herbal teas, black garlic, cold meats and ready-made meals. So many examples of this way of living the very Japanese notion of “itadakimasu”, or receiving with humility and gratitude food from nature and its transformation by the person who prepared it.

Subtle plates

In the small room, wide open to the forest where the stove hums most of the year, the twenty or so guests begin their taste journey with an infusion of wild plants. On this June day, the large dish brought by the chef before the meal combines daikon, celery, Jerusalem artichokes, white and green asparagus, chives, thyme, mint, eggs, chicken, stalks of butterbur, rhubarb… More than one menu as such, Kaori offers us a taste poem. Thirteen plates will follow one another, accompanied by a vintage of dry white wine from Hokkaido, broths and infusions. White asparagus soup and asparagus skin jelly with cardamom; fresh goat’s cheese with rhubarb, watercress and nasturtium jam; pork liver and bear meat pâté; pig’s trotter croquette; rack of pork with vegetables and thyme; pine needle desserts and bay leaf and lemon sorbet; mugwort dessert… As you bite through your mouthfuls, you wander through this harsh and beautiful nature, with a harsh climate, where the best of French gastronomy meets the art of the little and Japanese elegance. From the earth of her fields to the delicacy of her dishes, including her rifle, Kaori invents a unique path for herself, which makes Japan rustle and sets an example. Unique !

Agriscape, 177 Kobetsusawa, Nishi Ward, Sapporo, Hokkaido 063-0011, Japan. +81 11 676 8445.

agriscape.jp