Uribou (Regà s, 35) is a refuge in an alleyway in Sant Gervasi, which is another step towards the Japanese concept of omakase, based on the fact that diners completely trust what the chef decides to prepare that day. It is the dream of Atsushi Takata, a chef born in Hiroshima who arrived in Barcelona a quarter of a century ago and is in no hurry. He worked a long time ago in the emblematic Yashima; His interest in other kitchens and pantries led him to the Menjador de Can Ravell or later to Alkimia, where he says that he learned from Jordi Vilà what it means to be a chef-owner and what total involvement in the business means; he was responsible for the missing Icho, or the Tempura-Ya on Muntaner street.
And in 2010 he opened his restaurant, La Cuina de l’Uribou, in Les Corts, where he combined a recurring Japanese offer with a blackboard on which he recommended seasonal dishes to his liking, which the initiated diners soon took out of his hands.
The place was too big and he and his partner, Kana Takata, moved to a more secluded and comfortable space where they usually serve a maximum of 15 diners between the bar and the tables (more could fit, but the chef prefers it that way). Someday, he likes to imagine, those 15 customers will go down to a maximum of 10 per service. Takata loves markets and is attracted by the similarities in respect for the product that he sees between Catalan and Japanese cuisine. He is convinced that the fever of globalization and that euphoria of finding everything at any time of the year has been giving way to calm and an ever deeper respect for the local and the artisan, which both he and Kana, who looks after the room with pure empathy, they satisfy working with small producers. They buy the rice that they like the most from L’Estany de Pals, or small vegetables, herbs or sprouts from Ebio-vegetal, a project of a Japanese gardener who began planting products in his orchard in Girona with the dream of making “edible gardeningâ€. .
Just a few days after trying the spring menu, we went back one morning to chat with the couple before they turned on the stove at Uribou, which has just turned two years old, and we found that the menu has changed almost completely. Spring doesn’t stop. We asked Takata about that beautiful Japanese term, nagori, which evokes nostalgia for the season that is ending, and he tells us that in Japan the seasons are very marked not only in the pantry but in everything that accompanies the ritual of eating, such as the dishes. He started a little over a year ago to create his own collection and has surprised his teacher at the excellent results. His first memories of him linked to seasonality, he tells us, are of the trees on the way to school when he was a kid.
On this menu that is no longer available, we were able to savor the octopus from the Costa Brava with rapeseed flower, catching on the fly that landscape of yellow fields that shine in spring, seasoned with fresh wasabi; brussels sprouts and bamboo shoots in a warm salad with walnuts and white miso from Kyoto and a touch of fresh basil. A comforting soup of miso and honeyed Japanese potatoes with roasted horse mackerel, calçots and Japanese parsley from the Japanese gardener. Also Skrei cod marinated with white miso and nasturtium and kumquat confit on the house; tempura white shell crab cooked at low temperature with cilantro and with a sauce based on Sichuan pepper.
It will follow a delicious open sushi, where the fish rest on a layer of rice and the dessert of pears of different varieties and with various treatments, yogurt ice cream and almonds. The wines that Kana chooses are Catalan. The local and Japan in a subtle harmony. Don’t miss your favorite sake; the Harukasumi White Label, pure silk. One day, Taka says, his cooking will be even more radical and he will feel even more free.
