Kaiseki Criollo, Spring 2016

Culinary inspiration can be found in many places — cookbooks, food films, dining at a new restaurant, visiting farmers markets, meeting other chefs, or following the World’s 50 Best Restaurants on social media. But nothing inspires me to cook as much as traveling, being immersed completely in another culture, and learning about it through food is an experience that stays with you forever. And after coming home from a week-long exploration of the food and cocktail culture in Tokyo, all I’ve been wanting to do is to cook.

For days, I was profoundly inspired to cook a Peruvian tasting menu that followed some of the progression and Japanese culinary traditions of a kaiseki meal — 5 colors, 5 flavors, 5 senses, and 5 methods of cooking, all of which center around a sense for shun, the peak of seasonality for ingredients. Going through this creative process completely transformed how I viewed a menu, thought about the ingredients, and plated the dishes. The result, a culinary fusion of Peruvian and Japanese cultures, is something that I am calling kaiseki criollo.
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