Centurion United Kingdom Winter 2014

BLACKBOOK CITYSCAPE five

BLACKBOOK CITYSCAPE five million pounds of fish a day. The auction starts around 5am. Tuna is king; watch 225kg slabs of it burst into pink flesh under band saws. Grab a fresh sushi breakfast a few blocks away, closer to the fruit and vegetable market, at Sushi Dai (+81 33547 6797), though be prepared to wait for a seat. Order the omakase (chef’s choice). Go soon: rumour has it that as early as 2016, the market, which has been in the same central Tsukiji location for nearly eight decades, will move to the manmade Toyosu island in Tokyo Bay. 6 HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE Although the eastern capital of Japan is obsessed with the now, it does still retain some history. One refreshing reminder is Gallery éf (gallery-ef.com), in a restored warehouse built in 1868 (the year that Tokyo was renamed – it used to be called Edo). It showcases exhibitions by lesser-known Japanese artists and the architecture alone is transporting. The entrance is very low – you will need to stoop down to get in – and inside it’s dark, with wooden walls, beamed ceilings and a lacquered floor. Open to exploration, it’s one of the city’s few libertarian landmarks. 7 HAUTE AND HOT Before Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson immortalised the Park Hyatt’s New York Grill (tokyo.park.hyatt.com) in Lost in Translation, it won Otagi Nenbutsu-ji temple in Arashi yama, Kyoto …THEN THERE’S KYOTO It’s hard not to compare Kyoto, Japan’s Imperial capital, with Tokyo, the teeming usurper that took the political lead post-1868. If Tokyo is associated with everything trendy, Kyoto is its traditional opposite. Japanese have long appreciated the heritage here; some 12 million pay an overnight visit annually. Now, in its own graceful way, Kyoto is having a moment, opening slightly to new development and expressing a pride of place poised to attract international attention. —ELAINE GLUSAC Kyoto is not awash in in ternational retail or hotel brands. But the upcoming Four Seasons, set to open in 2016, and the new Ritz-Carlton (ritzcarlton.com), on the banks of the Kamogawa River, are expanding lodging in a pampered direction. At the Ritz, the Japanese tea ceremony, developed in Kyoto, is the inspiration for the spa’s Ryokucha Serenity Ritual featuring poultices steeped in matcha (green tea). For a more traditional inn experience, there’s Hoshinoya Kyoto (global.hoshinoresort.com), just a ten-minute boat ride on the Ooi River. After the kaiseki meal at the Michelin-starred restaurant, take the new riverboat that offers sake-tasting moonlight cruises through the Arashiyama gorge. Return to your room to steep in a cypress-wood bath. Traditional cuisine, known in its entirety as washoku, recently received Unesco World Heritage status, bringing attention to Kyoto’s contribution: vegetables. Try Honke Owariya (honkeowariya.co.jp), which has been making soba noodles for royals and monks since 1465. For a modern approach, pull up a stool at Isoya (isozumi.jp); its menu is in Japanese only, but ingredients are on view, so use the pointand-pray ordering method. It’s not uncommon in Kyoto to meet 12th-generation craftsmen who make anything from ceramics to obi sash weavings. Masataka Hosoo, whose family has been making obi since 1688, recently partnered with the Danish design studio OeO and the descendants of other craft dynasties to form the collective Japan Handmade (japanhandmade.com), which makes modern items like stools and trays using traditional techniques. For art, in September the new Collections Hall addition to the classical campus of the Kyoto National Mu seum (kyohaku. go.jp) opened to house treasures such as Buddhist scroll cases dating back to 1007. The city’s 1,600 or so temples range from monk-maintained meditation sites to more extroverted spaces. Among the latter, the 17th-century Kanga-an (kangaan.jp) has long sustained itself as a vegan kaiseki restaurant. In 2009 it opened a small bar that remains unadvertised and unmarked – walk up the lanternlit path to the main temple and take a left – and patronised by in-the-know locals. Sweet shops line the lanes around Kyoto’s biggest temples. Learn the basics of making mochicovered red-bean-paste desserts at Kanshundo (kanshundo.co.jp). (Classes are taught in Japanese but with plenty of demonstration that is easy to copy.) Just shy of 6pm nightly, Kyoto’s geiko — the local term for geisha — and maiko, or apprentice geisha, generally make their way to appointments in teahouses clustered in the historic Gion district, where travellersturned-paparazzi jostle nightly. Hire Bodhi Fishman, a California expat-guide and the owner of Bodaiju Travel & Arts (+81 75746 4513), to reveal more discreet geisha quarters. A sashimi appetiser from Hoshinoya’s kaiseki dinner PHOTOS FROM TOP: © OTAGI NENBUTSU-JI; HOSHINOYA KYOTO 42 CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM

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