I want to cook the vegetables that farmers have carefully tended in the most delicious way possible. Interview with Kamaya Chef Ai Shimizu

The Food Hub Project in Kamiyama, Tokushima, which Monosus helped to found, is now in its eighth year. For me, who has been coming to Kamiyama for the past eight years, the restaurant "Kama-ya" and the bread and grocery store "Kamapan & Store" are happy places where I can meet people and eat delicious food whenever I go.

The current head chef at Kamaya is Shimizu Ai, also known as Mogu-san. I still remember the first time I tried Mogu-san's cooking. The main dish was grilled Awa-mi pork in a crepinette. I was worried that the meat might be a bit heavy, but it went down easy. The vegetable soup was simple yet deep in flavour, and each dish was prepared with the delicacy of a ballerina's fingertips. Moreover, there was no pressure, like "See! Isn't it delicious?", but rather a warmth that made me feel cared for...

Oops, I got a little too excited in my speech (I'm just a fan).

In this issue of "Meguru Measuring Rulers," we interview Mogu. We asked him about the path he took to come to Food Hub and what makes him happiest when cooking. (The top photo was taken by Kamaya staff member Misa Ohno!)

"I want to be scolded and trained by that chef," he said, and went to a restaurant in Yoyogi at the age of 21.

- Mogu, why did you decide to make cooking your job?

Shimizu: When I was in elementary school, I made cream stew for my father's friends and they said it was delicious, which made me really happy. I also love to eat. When I was in high school, I would work part-time and go on food tours. After graduating from high school, I studied Japanese, Western (French, Italian, and Chinese) cuisine at a culinary school in my hometown of Tokushima for a year, and then worked at a hotel in Awajishima for two and a half years. At the time, there were no sources of information like social media, so I went on food tours in Tokyo to find restaurants I wanted to go to, and I ended up changing jobs to Restaurant Kinoshita in Yoyogi.

- Why did you want to work at Restaurant Kinoshita?

When I tasted Shimizu , I thought it was a delicious taste. I wanted to master this taste. Restaurant Kinoshita has a semi-open kitchen, so you can see the chef and sous-chef. When I saw the sous-chef getting really angry at his junior, I thought, "I want to be scolded by that sous-chef."

- Instead of thinking, "This person is scary!", I thought to myself, "I want to be trained by this person."

Shimizu : Yes. I wanted to learn from someone with such passion. The hotel on Awaji Island was a small resort hotel, so I had experience in various positions and felt like I could do it, but when I started at Restaurant Kinoshita, I was frustrated every day because I realized there was such a big difference in level. It was a popular restaurant that was difficult to get reservations for, so it was very busy. I made so many mistakes that I gave up and quit after six months. But I didn't want to go to a restaurant that I wasn't satisfied with, so I worked at the cash register of a supermarket near the restaurant, and when the chef and sous chef came to buy groceries, they said to me, "You can come back if you want to," and I returned to the same restaurant three months later.

There were many chefs who wanted to work at Kinoshita Restaurant, and all the hall staff were waiting to go to the kitchen. However, I was 21 at the time, so maybe they thought I was young and easy to use, but I was told to "join the kitchen" from the afternoon of my first day. It was only natural that the people waiting to go to the kitchen would think, "Why are you in the kitchen first?" Even after I returned, I was harshly told off by my seniors for even the slightest mistake, which took a toll on me mentally, and I ended up quitting again six months later.

I want to become a chef who pursues what he believes to be "the one"

- It must have been really tough for you to have such a breakdown. What did you do after that?

When I was working at Shimizu Restaurant Kinoshita, Madame took me to a restaurant in Nakameguro called "Monsieur Yosuke" where I worked for six and a half years. At this restaurant, the first dish served is "Snow Crab and Enoki Mushroom Quiche" which is the chef's signature dish. Each dish is made with great care. Until then, I had wondered "How can I do everything?" but after eating Yosuke's food, I thought "I want to become a chef who pursues what I consider to be my true calling."

However, after five years of working at Monsieur Yosuke, Ogino Shinya, who was the sous chef at Restaurant Kinoshita, invited me to join him as he was going independent. I couldn't go right away, but after working hard at Monsieur Yosuke, I went to Restaurant Ogino, which Ogino opened in 2007. At the time, it was both a restaurant and a charcuterie that processed meat such as sausages and pâté de campagne, and I ended up making sausages and pâtés there.

At that time, Ogino-san was consulting with producers in Hokkaido who he had connections with, saying, "We have vegetables that don't meet the standards and fish that are going to be discarded." He had started an initiative to turn unused ingredients into dishes at roadside stations in Hokkaido. Furthermore, when the idea of collecting unused ingredients from producers in Hokkaido and opening a prepared food store came up, I volunteered to go.

Mogu-san cooking in the kitchen at Kamaya. It feels like something delicious is being created!

Creating a menu using ingredients delivered from producers

- Why did you want to go to Hokkaido?

ShimizuAt that time, I was struggling in Tokyo with the ultimate goal of "I want to return to my hometown and open my own shop in the future." However, it's difficult to do business in the countryside just by bringing what I do in Tokyo, so I wanted to work in a place with local ingredients. I thought that the food waste initiative of using unused ingredients and the environment where I could cook while visiting producers and touching the ingredients would be good. In 2010, I went to Hokkaido and worked for five years at Vivre Ensemble Produit Ogino, a prepared food store that opened at Marui Imai's Sapporo main store. There, like I do now at Kamaya, instead of ordering vegetables to match the dishes, I would receive consultations from farmers who would say, "I have some B-grade corn, can you use it?" or "I have a lot of green peppers and I'm having trouble," and I would create French prepared dishes while thinking up menus from the vegetables that arrived.

- As a chef, cooking in a restaurant and making side dishes must have been different experiences.

Shimizu deli has the advantage of being able to serve more people than a restaurant, but the central kitchen and the store are separate, so you can't see the customers eating. I could hear people saying "It was delicious" and get feedback from the sales figures, but I started to wonder if this is really what I want to do. After thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that "I've done what I can do up until now, but I want to serve customers hot food in the most delicious way possible." I was offered the opportunity to return to Tokyo, but I ended up working for the deli department that was running "Table Ogino" in the metropolitan area. Five years later, I was already 35 years old and was really worried about what to do next, when I happened to read an article about the Food Hub Project (hereinafter referred to as Food Hub) featured in the magazine "Jiyuujin" (May 2018 issue) in "True Regional Revitalization, Seven Stories." I was curious, so I came to Kamaya to eat and see it with my own eyes, and then I applied through the web form, saying "I would like to go to the training."

One day at Kama-ya

Why did you want to work at Food Hub?

- Do you remember the first time you came to Kamaya?

Shimizu was delicious and I thought it was a great place. I wanted to work here and make it even better. Kamaya has a stove, which is also the origin of the restaurant's name. I love rice, so I thought, "I want to cook rice in this stove so it tastes really good." In fact, after I became head chef, I consulted with the other members and came up with new ways to cook rice.

- I'd like to ask Mogu, who had previously worked at a popular restaurant in Tokyo, why he wanted to work at Food Hub.

Shimizu Food Hub has many different teams, including bread, processing, food education, and agriculture, and producers are right nearby. I thought there was no other place in Japan where I could work in such a wonderful environment. If I worked at Kamaya, I could learn from various teams depending on myself, and the members were all very attractive people, so I thought it would be great to be able to stimulate each other. If you stay in one restaurant, your world will inevitably become narrow, but just being at the Food Hub allows you to take in a lot of different things. Also, Kamaya does not order ingredients from the menu, but creates menus from seasonal vegetables that are available, so I thought I could make use of what I have done up until now.

- When did you join Food Hub?

Shimizu : It was October 2019. I took over from the previous head chef until the end of December, and became head chef in January 2020. At that time, Kamaya Lunch was an "Obanzai style" and it was difficult to make a profit. Even though we looked at the numbers and tried to improve ordering losses, the cost rate did not go down. In the first place, with the Obanzai style, we had to prepare more than we could predict the number of customers, and there was also waste of ingredients and effort due to the daily changing menu. Just when I was wondering what to do, the COVID-19 pandemic began. During the closure period, we decided to rethink Kamaya's menu.

- Manabe (Taichi) consulted with Jerome (Wag), who was the head chef at Chez Panisse.

Shimizu : Yes. After eating lunch at Kamaya, Jerome seemed to think, "With such good ingredients and such a good environment, we should make better use of the ingredients in a simpler way." After discussing it with him, we came up with the current "set menu style" lunch and reopened on May 27, 2020.

Kamaya team members when Mogu became head chef (Photo: Namazu Katsutaka)

"The work of making a plate is half done by the farmer and half by the chef."

- What was it like working with Jerome?

The thing that surprised me the most about eating Shimizu Jerome's food was the soup. In French cuisine, soup is made by taking chicken stock, vegetable stock, frying the vegetables and simmering them together, layering the flavors and taking a lot of time and effort. But Jerome just frys the onions, adds the vegetables and water, stirs them when they're ready, and seasons them with salt. I was shocked at how something so simple can be so delicious! It made me think, "What is the way I've been making soup up until now?"

- A whole new world of cooking has opened up for you.

Shimizu : Of course, there are definitely areas where I can apply my French cuisine because I have a base in French cuisine. I started thinking about how to bring out the best flavor in the vegetables that farmers produce. Before, I thought about how I wanted to make this dish with this flavor, but now I think about how I can make the most of the vegetables that farmers have grown and have people enjoy them. It's fun and very stimulating. I'm really glad I came here.

- Why did you want to take such good care of farmers' vegetables?

In addition to the impact of eating the food that Shimizu Jerome makes, I also gained a deeper understanding of what farmers do. For example, this is the time of year when stink bugs appear, so he goes out of his way to catch them in the middle of the night to avoid the heat of the day. I learned that the "pesticide-free" and "reduced-pesticide" vegetables that we take for granted are produced through the immeasurable, hard work of farmers. Jerome's words, "Half the work of making a plate is done by the farmer and half by the chef," really resonated with me. Until then, I thought that we were the ones who made the plates, but I realized that this is completely wrong. It felt like my mind had been smashed open. I reflected on my actions.

"The work of making a plate is half done by the farmer and half done by the chef," says Jerome Waag, former head chef of Chez Panisse.

- What do you value most in your work as a chef right now?

Shimizu: That's true for me, but when I eat something delicious, it gives me energy. I would be happiest if I could do that for my customers. I want the people who eat the food served at Kamaya to feel very happy, and to feel like "after eating this, I can do my best again tomorrow." I continue to have careful dialogue with my team members so that we can deliver what I envision. Right now, I have my own challenges in many areas while I'm here, so I would like to continue working at Food Hub.

I thought that the phrase "The job of making a plate is half the farmer and half the chef" is not just a theory like "You can't cook without the producers who produce the ingredients." Mogu's strong expression "had his head smashed" has the same impact as giving up half of the plate that he had made with all his heart and soul as a chef. At the same time, I also thought that Mogu is probably ready to have his head smashed at any time in order to create "even more delicious" food.

Perhaps the reason why Mogu's cooking is so delicious is, of course, largely due to his experience honing his skills in the world of French cuisine, but it may also be because he is prepared to "smash his head in order to create something delicious." That's right, when Mogu is at Kamaya, it makes me want to "enjoy the meal with all my heart!" I want Mogu to see my delicious face -- and this is starting to sound like a fan letter again, so I'll stop here.

Mogusan, see you again at Kamaya!