Signs of a new era in Niseko’s evolution appeared last winter with the opening of acorn — a cutting-edge contemporary Japanese restaurant born out of Tokyo’s cosmopolitan dining scene.
While Niseko’s dining scene was founded on exceptional but otherwise totally unassuming, organic, cottage-based restaurants, over the last decade international developers and other foreign businesses have recruited high-profile chefs – many out of Michelin-star restaurants – to add to the modern high-end Niseko dining experience.
Last winter an interesting twist on the theme emerged after a large Japanese company teamed up with the chef of trendy Tokyo establishment 81 to open a new restaurant in the back streets of Middle Hirafu out of an elegant, refurbished old log cabin. Chef and now creative director of acorn, Takeshi Nagashima, trained at Spain’s El Bulli – once named best restaurant in the world – under chef Ferran Adrià, who has been described as the “Salvador Dali of the kitchen”.
The result was something so far unseen in Niseko – a dining experience that melds traditional Japanese hospitality with modern, internationally influenced gastronomy and an all-encompassing sensory experience. It’s not just about the food and its presentation – it’s also about the drinks that accompany each dish, the smells in the house, the ambience of the surrounds, the lighting, props, music (pre-selected for each dish), landscape and seasonality.
Upon entering the log cabin via its timber staircase, guests are greeted with a welcoming ambience and an irori (Japanese sunken hearth) at the centre of the dining area. Head-chef Yoko Aoyagi, who trained under Chef Nagashima at 81, explains the concept behind the layout. “In a traditional Japanese house, the irori is considered the centre of the home,” Aoyagi-san says. “We wanted to use irori as symbolism of Japan’s traditional housing setup.” From there, guests are either seated at the main table surrounding the irori, or led to more intimate spaces in different parts of the building to formally embark on their dining experience for the evening.
acorn describes the style of the meals as “contemporary kaiseki”. Kaiseki is a high-end course menu inspired by the offerings of the season. This ethos is carried out with the presentation of dishes, each representing Japanese winter, infused with a sense of spring to acknowledge the rise of warmth.
“‘Modern Japanese’ is the term I use to describe our style,” Aoyagi-san says. “This is a new genre of the culinary experience, which infuses a progression of Japanese culture in our acorn format.”
A good representation of this philosophy is acorn’s signature dish – a pasta carbonara officially titled “Deconstructed Carbonara”. Carbonara is ubiquitous in Japan, served at home and all manner of restaurants across the country. Nagashima-san and Aoyagi-san’s take on the dish is to serve a poached egg with truffle oil injected into the core of the egg. When the diner dissects the egg a scent of truffle dominates the space, creating a new sensation to the carbonara experience.
What can you expect from acorn’s second season in Niseko? Umami – that fifth taste so inexplicable and common in Japanese food that only a Japanese word could describe it. “Umami is our focus for the second season,” Aoyagi-san says. “We believe that Hokkaido has a number of umami sources we are yet to discover, and we will explore some of these this winter to once again present an unprecedented dining experience in this ski resort.”