Saucer

In the basement of a building in Ebisu, there was once a restaurant called "Issei Yuasa Laboratory." After Yuasa moved to Nishi-Azabu, the space quietly waited for its next master.

How should we bring it to life? What kind of restaurant should it become? While we were turning these questions over, we met a chef: our current chef, Kazuma Gunji.

The first dish Gunji made for us was very beautiful.

And yet, Gunji himself was nowhere to be seen on that plate. The flavors felt somehow restrained, as if tracing someone else's right answer. Even so, the delicacy in each dish and his earnest devotion to cooking were qualities rarely found elsewhere.

As we talked further, the path Gunji had walked came into view: his days as saucier in a Ginza kitchen, then crossing the sea to hone his skills in Lyon and Paris. And when the conversation turned to sauces, a sudden heat came into his voice.

These were not polished words. It was a fierce passion welling up from the depths of his heart.

The traditional sauces of French cuisine. A world of stocks drawn slowly, reduced, and layered over time, which today might be called old-fashioned. Perhaps a laborious, clumsy way of doing things. Perhaps not something many people would embrace.

Even so, we decided. However few the guests might be, we would elevate this world of traditional sauces into flavors that could be embraced in Japan today. Rather than following trends, we would make our stand with those very sauces.

The restaurant's name is Saucer, a French word meaning to dress a dish with sauce, and to wipe up the sauce left on the plate with bread. At the foundation of every dish is a triple consommé that takes three days to make. Concentration, refinement, harmony. Gunji's cuisine builds the whole world on the plate from a single point: the sauce.

In 2024, Saucer was awarded one Michelin star.

Even so, we do not think Gunji's cooking is in step with the trends of the times. Neither Gunji himself nor GRAPES believes that. Intricately concentrated sauces are surely not to the taste of the majority.

But there are people who love these sauces. People who unravel the many-layered flavors with every bite, and wipe up every last spoonful with their bread.

To bring true delight to those people, who are not the majority, Gunji stands at his pots in the basement kitchen again today, honing his craft.