Recent surveys of our Google searches and travel preferences made one thing clear – Singaporeans just can’t get enough of Japan. One easy fix is to escape for a few hours to Shoukouwa, which recently unveiled an entirely new “terroir-driven” look and feel after an extensive renovation.

When you arrive at the two-Michelin-starred restaurant at One Fullerton, you already get a hint of the culinary escapism to come. Fronting the restaurant is a newly installed barrier of interlocking blond bamboo strips known as inuyarai. Common in ancient Kyoto neighbourhoods, these low, curved fences were designed as a sort of protective “bumper” for the walls of homes and businesses against the constant wear and tear of heavy foot and horse traffic. (Shoukouwa’s well-heeled guests, I imagine, should ensure its inuyarai remain pristine.)

THE NEW LOOK

“Shoukouwa” means an oasis of stillness, serenity and harmony. Its redesign, overseen by Tomoyuki Hisano of interior design studio Toms & Design Associates, needed to evoke these qualities efficiently in a relatively compact space, so diners would quickly feel transported from the sweltering tourist-clogged waterfront outside to Japan’s gentler climes. A small bubbling water feature at the entrance – reminiscent of those fronting Shinto shrines – marks the beginning of a short, pebbled walkway which leads to striking red Japanese stucco walls, the stippled texture of which was created using actual soil from Kyoto. Overhead, a wood-beamed ceiling recalls Japan’s sukiya-style tea houses.

Shoukouwa has two seating areas – a main sushi counter that can accommodate eight diners and a private dining room that seats six. The former features a sage-green, wave-patterned wall with an alcove containing a bonsai plant and the latter a luxuriously iridescent gold-and-silver wallpaper with stylised botanical motifs. Anchoring these spaces are Shoukouwa’s two original wood counters. Crafted from rare, centuries-old hinoki cypress wood, these gleaming slabs are the handiwork of a master craftsman who builds furniture for Japan’s imperial family.

To complete the mise-en-scene (and complement its Edomae sushi), there is new custom tableware assembled from Japan’s four corners, like lacquerware from Fukui, ceramic cutlery from Saga and minoyaki ceramic plates from Gifu. Even Shoukouwa’s chefs and its female staff have had a “makeover”, now sporting tailor-made robes and kimonos crafted from Toray silk – a proprietary, sustainable Japanese-engineered fibre blend that captures silk’s natural flex and sheen.

A SHOWCASE OF THE SEA

Shoukouwa’s revamped interior is an apt stage for the culinary stylings of head chef Kazumine Nishida, its Kansai-born sushi maestro with over 20 years of culinary experience. Nishida, who was the restaurant’s sous chef before assuming the lead role in 2019, does not speak much English but has an easy, beguiling way with guests.

Guided by the fresh produce he receives four times a week from Japan’s Toyosu market, Nishida’s highly refined, seasonal omakase menus more than speak to his ability. Three omakase menus are currently available: Miyabi (S$350++ per person) and Hana menu (S$520++ per person) for lunch, and Hana menu (S$520++ per person) and En menu (S$680++ per person) for dinner.

I tried the Hana lunch menu, a robust selection of courses showcasing the finest seasonal Japanese fruits de mer like baby sea bream, Hokkaido hairy crab and black throat sea perch. There were several standouts, like the innocuously-named “rock seaweed with sea urchin”, a low crystal bowl topped with a single, pristine lotus leaf. The latter holds a trembling blob of broth, which you’re invited to slide, mercury-like, into awaiting tongues of sea urchin in a bracing broth of cold vinegar, kuruma ebi tiger prawn, myoga ginger flower and crunchy, slippery, gelatinous rock seaweed – a delicious appetite-stirring confluence of lake and sea.

Another highlight is the squid nigiri, which Nishida finely slices and presents on a cuboid of steamed rice with a hint of salt and sudachi lime. This glistening little parcel of white-on-white is a transformative bite, recalling – for those who remember – Andre Chiang’s iconic “risotto” made from fine-chopped squid at his now defunct Restaurant Andre.https://www.instagram.com/p/Cs_LlRzBc_N/embed/captioned/?cr=1&v=14&wp=822&rd=https%3A%2F%2Fcnaluxury.channelnewsasia.com&rp=%2Fexperiences%2Fjapanese-restaurant-shoukouwa-michelin-star-singapore-237851#%7B%22ci%22%3A0%2C%22os%22%3A6385.199999928474%7D

This was followed by a tender slice of butter fish (silver pomfret) topped with an ochre strip of soft ponzu jelly, which Nishida exhorted us to “eat, eat” before it melted. And the toro maki – a tuna hand roll nigiri – was another winner, a shatteringly crisp seaweed wrapper filled with a finely hand-diced tartare of chutoro, otoro, leek and pickled radish.

CREATIVE PAIRINGS

Creative food and drink pairings have become de rigueur in Singapore’s finer restaurants and Shoukouwa’s inventive take was to engage Singapore’s first Master of Wine, Tan Ying Hsien, to curate its drinks pairing. Tan, who performs a similar role at two-Michelin-starred Saint Pierre (Shoukouwa’s sister restaurant under the Food Inc group) said the process offered its share of surprises and discoveries.

“The sake pairings more or less fell into place with largely junmai daiginjo sakes that matched the delicacy and transparency of the chef’s cuisine at Shoukouwa,” said Tan, referring to the ultra-premium sake brewed with highly-polished rice. Highlights included the full-bodied, thick-textured Katsuyama Sensho Masamune Junmai Daiginjo (served with the butter fish) and Katsuyama Ken Junmai Ginjo, a smooth, crisp and dry IWC champion sake with a unique collection of melon, straw, bread, stone fruit and rice aromas that complemented the baby sea bream nigiri.                                                   

The wine pairings proved more challenging, said Tan, because of “the different flavours of the ingredients, the delicacy and finesse of some of the courses, the intensity of others and the textural differences of the food courses that had to be matched by the wines”.

There was the pronounced fruit of a Fritz Haag Brauneberger Juffer Riesling Spatlese 2020, an impressively silky pinot gris (Domaine Weinbach Pinot Gris Altenbourg 2019) and a long, fresh and polished Semillon (Tyrrell’s Vat 1 Hunter Semillon 2015).

Nishida’s dishes allowed Tan to transcend conventional approaches using only international varieties or established styles. “The most fascinating wine choices were probably the ones that were less obvious,” he said. These included oxidative orange-style wines to off-the-beaten-track varieties such as an assyrtiko (Jim Barry Assyrtiko 2021), a white Greek wine grape cultivated successfully in Australia’s Clare Valley.

The Coteau des Treilles Domaine Pithon-Paille 2009, an oxidative style of wine that was served with the smoked young tuna, was one of Tan’s favourite pairings. “The oxidative citric peel and nutty notes provided an interesting umami-like complement to the smoky flavour of the fish,” he said.

Another rewarding pairing were the red burgundies with the toro courses. “The soft tannins of pinot noir generally don’t clash with the oils in the fish, yet the red fruit flavours and finely-grained textures of the wines meld seamlessly with the meaty character of toro,” said Tan.

Tan hoped that his pairings would yield equally gratifying discoveries for diners, and show them wine and sake pairings can “go beyond conventional thinking and subjective preferences.”

“For me, the best outcome is that whether or not diners agree with the specific pairings, it spurs creative and constructive debate.”