5 Paris Eateries Starring Japanese Ingredients

The overwhelmingly fresh interior of AIDA, with its wood furnishings and Japanese bowls and plates, can convince guests that they really are in Japan. In the past, Chef Aida was thrilled by the surprises that different combinations of ingredients could offer. These days, though, his cooking embodies a respect for the natural flavors of every ingredient, with each one used to its fullest.

The chef of Enyaa Saké & Champagne, which opened in November of 2016, is Daisuke Endo. He spent 23 years dedicating himself to the production of Kyoto cuisine in Kyoto. He seeks to use traditional Kyoto cuisine as his base, making the most of each individual ingredient to create a fusion of Japanese and French elements with his traditional Japanese cuisine. He takes fresh, seasonal ingredients and adds seasonings from Japan, such as konbu seaweed and dried bonito flakes, to complete his Japanese dishes.

Komatsubaki is a hideaway-style restaurant located not far from Champs-Élysées where two chefs display their talents. In an era when many Europeans could not distinguish between Japan and China—when Japanese restaurants made for Japanese tourists in Europe were still in a pioneering phase—Chef Yoichi Kino dedicated himself to his work in Japanese restaurants since the seventies and has been able to watch the times change.

Sous Les Cerisiers, which means “underneath the cherry blossom trees,“ opened in May 2009. The cuisine prepared by the chef-proprietor Sakura Franck adds to traditional Japanese cuisine a range of exotic flairs from Thailand, India, Morocco, and more, and has a certain modern and feminine delicacy. She uses seasonings from Japan, including shisoleaves, yuzu citrus peel, seven-spice blend, sansho pepper, and wasabi, as well as cha soba and regular soba, and even uses cherry blossom leaves pickled in salt in her fish marinades.

Toraya, the long-established Japanese confectionary shop with a history and tradition of five centuries, opened its Paris branch in 1980 to introduce Japanese sweets to France. Since then, it has created Japanese sweets using exactly the same carefully selected ingredients in its Paris store that are used in Japan.