Yoshihiro Murata

At Kikunoi we use ichiban-dashi in all our cooking. Ichiban-dashi makes it easy to adjust the taste for different foods and preparation methods, and it enhances the level of our cuisine, letting us draw out the original flavors of ingredients without overemphasizing the distinctive flavor of the dashi.

Water is also an important element of Japanese cuisine. For many generations my family has preserved a well called kikusui no i, literally “chrysanthemum water well,” which provided water for use in the tea ceremony. We are now using this water for cooking at Kikunoi. The dashi we make with it has a different taste, and there is also a subtle difference in the flavor of the food we cook with it.