Elevating its culinary offerings to a new level of luxury, Cheval Blanc Paris has recently announced the opening of Japanese fine dining restaurant, Hakuba.
Marking the hotel’s fifth dining concept (in addition to three-Michelin-starred Plénitude, Le Tout-Paris and Langosteria), Hakuba is the result of a unique collaboration between Cheval Blanc Paris’s head chef Arnaud Donckele, revered Japanese sushi chef Takuya Watanabe and the hotel’s pastry chef Maxime Frédéric.
[See also: Paris Bar Danico Launches Japan Themed Cocktail Menu]
Intended to be a gastronomic immersion into the rituals and traditions of Japanese cuisine that have so captivated the Western fine dining landscape in recent years, Hakuba offers refined omakase-style cuisine in the heart of Paris.
"We want this table to be a total immersion into Japanese art and craftsmanship,” says Donckele. “On the sushi, temaki, gunkan side... Takuya Watanabe embodies rigor and authenticity. He has full creative freedom for remarkable creations with products such as fish, rice, Iio Jozo brewery vinegar, and seaweed."
[See also: Shinji Kanesaka Brings Sushi Restaurant to 45 Park Lane]
Chef
Born on the island of Hokkaido and brought up in the town of Niseko, the culture of respecting nature’s bounty was ingrained into Watanabe from a young age. The chef underwent a series of apprenticeships before opening his first-ever restaurant at the young age of 27 in the cit