Wine In My Kitchen: Cooking and Reading Everyday

By Karen Tripson

Testing the Chef's Tasting Menu at Home

Tetsuya: Recipes from Australia's Most Acclaimed Chef

As a food freak I am relentless in pursuing new trends, ingredients, restaurants and chefs. Never mind that there are so many places I'm unlikely to ever be a customer — I want to know about them all the same — particularly when it comes to the top of the heap.

In the realm of tasting menus, Tetsuya's Restaurant has had such a buzz about it, that I can't resist asking anyone I run into who says they've been to Australia, "Did you eat at Tetsuya's?" Yes, I have actually heard a few tales of dining there. It's legendary stuff like the lore of the tasting menus at the French Laundry in Yountville, Charlie Trotter's in Chicago or Alain Ducasse's newest in New York. Locally, we are lucky to have two outposts for tasting menus that aim high and deliver memorable occasions, Rover's and the Herb Farm.

Veterans Love to Tell
the Tale of the Tasting Menu
Anybody who has experienced a famous chef's tasting menu will not be shy about sharing all the details of how many hours it took, elaborate descriptions of how the food looked, tasted, and of course, the wine and the bottom line. The expense of these extravaganzas is one reason I like reading the cookbooks. The other is that when my skills are up to executing the recipes, I truly prefer to eat only three or four courses, so I can concentrate on the flavors, rather than eight, ten, twelve or more.

If you share my enthusiasm for a deluxe eating experience on a budget, run out and buy "Tetsuya". It is a beautiful book to look at and such a personal expression of the chef-artist's passion for cooking for people. Interesting wine suggestions accompany each recipe by the Tetsuya wine consultant, Jon Osbeiston, who is also the managing director of the Ultimo Wine Center. Invite some friends over and share the joy of this extraordinary food that can be done easily in a home kitchen. The final test of a big book of art like this one is when it comes to plating each recipe, the food photography is surprisingly close to the ingredients and instructions.

Unique Style and Flavors
Tetsuya Wakuda is unusual in his small circle of internationally acclaimed chefs for:

• No formal training — he opened his own place shortly after starting in the restaurant business.
• Wine leads the dish — Tetsuya's was a BYOB establishment for eight of its ten years and he designed dishes on the spot to go with the wine customers brought.
• Global food — not just the Pacific Rim or his native Japan but inspired by cuisines around the world.

At a Seattle shopping resource like Uwajimaya, I had no trouble finding ingredients, although the fish man who came out from behind the counter in his high-wader boots to help me shook his head over some of the recipes' instructions. Tetsuya has his own unique ways.

This is the tasting menu I shared with kindred spirits who nurture a wine cellar up to the challenge of creating pairings with the recipes I selected. They were extremely generous in trying to satisfy pairing conundrums such as white or red with seafood ravioli in tomato sauce. In that particular situation, both wines suggested were so delicious there was no clear answer. We'll just have to try it again. (The recipe and my testing notes for the Lobster Ravioli are available here in an easy PDF print format.)