Sushi Mizutani

Yesterday morning, I had to be careful, as I had also booked a three Michelin star place for lunch (if I don't do it here, then where?) and wanted to avoid taking up room with other stuff – as well as avoiding any other flavours. So I headed into Ginza, both to find the restaurant in good time (it is the antithesis of the Parisian three-star restaurant: Taillevent is probably as difficult as any to find in Paris, being downstairs, but even that is clearly signposted and visible; Sushi Mizutani had a tiny sign in Japanese and was located off a dimly-lit tiny basement in an otherwise-unremarkable office block. You'd have to be really determined and really looking). Once I had found what I thought might be the place, I headed over to Ito-ya, a stationery shop not far from where I was going to eat, passing pretty much every designer shop that one can possibly imagine along the way (every unpreposessing and quiet-looking backstreet seems to be teeming with Etros and Loro Pianas, Valntino fighting for space with Tiffany to be seen). Ito-ya does all the things that WH Smith's does (though, obviously, more stylishly and replacing Bic with Montegrappa), but the main reason for going was Ito-ya 3, their shop in a back alleyway selling handmade papers, calligraphy brushes, wrapping paper etc. It was a stationery-fetishist's paradise, and I spent two hours browsing, demanding that their finest washi papers are produced for my perusal and spending, ultimately, half as much on one beautiful sheet as I would spend on the lunch that was to come. As I emerged into the sunshine, laden with my newly found goodies, I was as happy as a boy could possibly be.
Then it turned out that Sushi Mizutani had lost my reservation. Imagine the scene; the restaurant seats ten people around a counter, behind which Mizutani-san hand cuts and prepares the sushi, brushing each one with shoyu (I think?) before placing it before the person. Sushi is served one at a time, with the master deftly making sure that no-one has to wait too long and that everyone has had everything that is one the “menu” that day (there is no menu – while one could, theoretically, ask for specific items, no-one does and all diners literally entrust (omakase) the master with their lunch, happy to be served by him what he will). Into this scene of trendy eaters and bepearled genteel ladies who lunch, a (lone, there were no others) gaijin boy bursts in, all excited and carrying bags of paper, speaking barely three words of Japanese. The room, hardly the size of my bedroom in London, follows the animated conversation between me (who genuinely DID reserve, months ago – and who realises that if I don't get lunch now, I won't have another chance either here or in Jiro (which was the other possibility, and where Mizutani-san used to work), since both are booked up months in advance). I cannot help but feel that it was all very unJapanese on my part, and I should probably have bowed out rather than attempting to argue my case, but I'm very glad I didn't. Soon, Mizutani-san himself intervened and told me to sit down – he was pretty sure there would be enough rice (the main worry) and the distraction was clearly not helping the other diners. A patron who had helpfully translated for me (and who, as it turns out, eats there regularly), indicated a free stool next to him (one of only two free places).
The sushi (and it was all sushi, no sashimi) was exquisite, the Platonic ideal of what sushi should be like. The rice was perfect, the amount of wasabi just right, the fish fresh (except the ten-day-aged tuna, which is bought after having been caught by just one fisherman (ie not by a trawler) and quickly cut to drain the blood (a process known, I am told, as ikejime), before being stored on ice. It is aged by Mizutani himself, who judges exactly when it is ready. Before he even starts the careful aging process, tuna fish cost around US$60,000 – 100,000 each). The order in which it was served was carefully thought out, with flavours of one piece seemingly complementing and gently merging with the next. The toro, the tuna belly, was I-want-to-burst-into-tears-of-joy good – it was possibly as close to gastronomic perfection as one could get, rivaling the Bresse chicken at the George V experience a few years ago.
After most of the diners had left, Mizutani-san became more talkative, as it was just me and my translating benefactor left still there – he pointed out that my long coat (embroidered with two gold cockerels or phoenixes fighting) was rather like a tattoo in style (my co-diner pointed out to me: “He does have rather yakuza tastes. I think it's all the sushi knives” - tattoos are still heavily associated with gangs and gangsters in Japan). Mizutani then got me to translate a dedication that Robuchon had left for him in a Michelin guide (seemingly assuming that my speaking English would make me a dab hand at French as well – though, to be fair, I had more trouble with the handwriting than the meaning) before saying that he has only just been to London last year (“Good city. Bad fish.” was the translation I got). I then got a cheeky photo with him and left to go on to the Tokyo National Museum.