Sézanne Tokyo pairs aged Comté with Yamagata maitake
Tokyo, Japan
At the intersection of French precision and Japanese seasonality, Sézanne Tokyo has composed a dish that honours the maitake mushroom at its peak. Grilled over hazelwood and glazed with soy and mirin, it rests on a porcini sablé tart with mushroom cream and 36 month aged Comté.
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The maitake arrives at its most potent when autumn turns toward winter, its ruffled fronds darkening with the season’s advance. At Sézanne Tokyo, these mushrooms from Yamagata Prefecture are brought to the fire and finished with a glaze of soy and mirin, their umami deepened by the smoke of hazelwood and the caramelised edges that char beneath the heat.
What follows is a study in restraint and resonance. The mushroom finds its bed in a porcini sablé tart, its buttered fragility a foil to the earthiness above. Mushroom cream draws the elements into conversation, and then comes the Comté, aged for 36 months until its crystalline structure catches light and its flavour has become something altogether richer and more complex than its younger self. The interplay is deliberate: the woodsmoke and salt sweet glaze of the maitake; the delicate perfume of the porcini; the deep, nutted umami of the aged cheese.
It is a dish that bows to both traditions without belonging entirely to either. The technique is French in its precision and plating, yet every primary ingredient speaks of Japan’s seasonal gift. To eat it is to understand how geography and time, method and terroir, can converge on a single plate.
Imagery courtesy of Sézanne Tokyo (@sezannetokyo).
