WagyuMafia The Butcher’s Kitchen
Tokyo
In a shed, on a farm near the city of Tamba-Sasayama, in the lushly Japanese prefecture of Hyogo, sit a few dozen cattle. With short horns, docile nature and glossy black coats, they’re the very picture of bovine beatitude, languorously stretched out on a soft dirt floor. Their diet is meticulously selected, their comfort paramount. In the background, opera plays gently. ‘They like it,’ says farmer Tomohiro Hara. ‘It keeps them calm.’ As you may have gathered, these are no ordinary cows.
Rather, Kobe beef, the Japanese Black breed of wagyu (wa means Japanese, gyu cow) called Tajima-gyu, is some of the most sought-after and expensive flesh on Earth. To be certified as authentic Kobe beef, the cows must be able to transform a napkin into a classic crane, while simultaneously penning 12 haikus. OK, that may not be entirely true, but standards are stringent, with all animals born, raised and slaughtered in Hyogo. Each cow possesses an ID number, its genetic history traced back through generations. Those genetics, plus the special feed and the farmers’ expertise, are the key to true quality.
The interior of WagyuMafia The Butcher’s Kitchen. Chef and co-owner Hisato Hamada has four places in Tokyo, plus one more in Hong Kong
And it’s Hara’s Kobe wagyu that is sitting before me now, a few days later at WagyuMafia The Butcher’s Kitchen in Tokyo. Chef and co-owner Hisato Hamada is showing off a 60-day aged loin. It’s a mighty piece of meat, with thick rivulets of creamy white fat coursing through its flesh. Hamada has four places in Tokyo, plus one more in Hong Kong. Here, there are just ten covers, arranged along a sheet metal bar, facing a Josper oven. Different cuts of meat are aged for different times, and the menu changes with the seasons.
This is my second visit in a few months. And since they waived payment tonight (I did try), I’ve based this review on the exact dishes I tried (and paid for) last time. Luckily, the notes vary little. If at all. Simply various riotous, delirious exhortations of delight. Because what Hamata does is take classic Japanese dishes (nigiri sushi, say, or gyoza), and makes them very much his own. There’s nothing formal about the service, no front of house or menu, and you’re only a knife swipe away from the shouting, growling, roaring chefs. Somehow, it works.
It’s like an after-hours party in the back kitchen of some staid Michelin temple, surrounded by expertly aged carcasses and fridges full of rare champagne. With the chefs unleashed, and left to indulge their every culinary whim. Dishes are passed direct into your hand, impromptu bottles of home-made limoncello appear, along with sips of rare sakes. Queen blare out on the stereo, as the whole room erupts into a karaoke version of I Want To Break Free. It would take a heart of carbon steel, and an appetite lined with lead, not to get stuck in.
There’s nothing formal about the service, no front of house or menu, and you’re only a knife swipe away from the shouting, growling, roaring chefs. Somehow, it works
There’s a pottery mug filled with pellucid beef broth, enriched with bone marrow, silken and seductive. Pure, liquid bliss. Then plump, just-burnished gyoza that bulge with finely minced beef. The richness is astonishing, as is the explosion of juice down your chin and shirt, and the crazed grin they unconsciously inspire. More, more, give me more. The famed katsu sandwich next, a matchbox-sized chunk of rare wagyu chateaubriand, cooked pink, coated in panko breadcrumbs then wedged between two slices of buttery toast. It looks like a Rothko painting. Tastes genius too. A tantalising moment of crisp resistance, before your teeth slide though that meat like a Samurai sword through Mongol heathen. The meat has a sweet, lascivious richness unlike anything I have ever tasted. Words, for once, fail me.
Best of all is nigiri sushi, a lozenge of beautifully vinegared rice, dabbed with freshly grated wasabi before being topped with a sliver of raw fillet, a curl of sea urchin and a great blob of caviar. Decadence, filth and delight in one ecstatic bite. More wagyu follows, bloody slices, thick and thin. This isn’t an everyday event, rather a joyous, brilliant, blow-out and blast, a wanton orgy of God-blessed beef. It sure ain’t cheap. But a fitting tribute to this most extraordinary of beasts.
About £215 per person