I sampled Michelin-starred food in Japan – but it's the egg mayo sandwiches I'll remember

Telegraph

14-03-2025

Presented in a beautiful, layered black box tied up with a ribbon, my first meal in Japan arrived in style. However, as I unfolded the trays of lovingly prepared food, it was as I suspected it might be: lots of raw fish. And, er… other stuff, some of it yellow and slimy. The guest next to me was impressed: 'This is exactly what I was looking forward to – a proper Japanese breakfast.''
I did not say 'this is exactly what I was dreading', but that would have been true. What I know about Japanese food could be written on the back of a receipt from Itsu – but look, I was giving it a go.
I had flown down from Tokyo to Fukuoka, Japan's sixth-largest city. Fukuoka is on Kyushu Japan's third-largest – and most southerly – island and has a growing reputation for its cuisine.
It had been a long journey and although I had a fantastic room in the Ritz Carlton, I was somewhat baffled by it. The bathroom consisted of two glass boxes inside each other, all of it which could be screened off. The design was superb, but it took me a while to figure out how to actually get inside it.
Prior to breakfast the only thing I had eaten since my arrival were some enormous strawberries left for me in my room. Grown locally, they could have rivalled anything from Kent.
Fukuoka, which means 'happy hills', is not on the usual Tokyo-Kyoto-Osaka circuit. It is, however, regularly cited as being one of the best places to live in Japan.
After a couple of days there, I began to see why. It's walkable – unlike the massive sprawl of Tokyo – and the people are friendly; there are beaches and plenty of green space. There are lots of little bars, some fabulous modern architecture, plus a museum full of Buddhist statues, Miro and Dali.
And then there's the food. On my first evening I dined at Yamaya Sohonten Zen in the Shirokane area of the city, a glass-walled restaurant supervised by Zaiyu Hasegawa, a leading figure in contemporary Japanese cuisine whose goal is to highlight Kyushu's food culture. Chef Abe Daishero was at the helm and everything looked very pretty – although I was not entirely clear what a lot of it was. A smiley face cut into a tiny piece of carrot? The claypot rice was a thing of beauty, each grain glistening gem like, but my favourite dish was a kind of deconstructed mackerel sushi, with lotus root tempura.
It was all quite a contrast to Yoruzu, a tea and sake house in the Akasaka area of the city, which I visited to sample its pairings of teas and wagashi (Japanese sweets). The menu – served in a small, dark zen space – was based around a low-key performance by the owner Suguru Tokobusi, who serves his teas in different temperatures from a kettle he designed himself, in what feels like a modern tea ceremony. His assistants bustle around in white coats, which adds to the strangeness. I didn't actually like the very strong tea – I guess this is like the different roasts of coffee – but I liked Tokobusi very much.
He handed me a bowl that was 400 years old and told me to hold the decoration away from myself; he pointed out that the bowl had a deliberate imperfection, as all things must. One could sense the underlying philosophy at work here. It reminded me of Leonard Cohen's line: 'There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.' There was something very moving about the care involved in all this. Tokobusi laughed at me because I really loved a smoked radish morsel he served, saying that it indicated I was a woman who likes 'hard liquor'. Some kind of psychic, surely?
The following day I bowed and made a wish at the local Jotenji temple near the Mikasa river, with its mad cartoonish entrance of a pink smiling face. But mostly I wished my stomach didn't feel quite so weird.
My next meal was lunch at Sushi Gyoten. It's a tiny little place that could seat no more than about eight customers at a time, all perched around one table while Kenji Gyoten himself works its magic. No wonder he has three Michelin stars.
As he placed a huge hairy crab that was still alive on the counter, I felt as if I was watching a master at work. He followed that with a slab of tuna as big as a side of beef, explaining all the different cuts. I tried some creamy puffer fish (they can be poisonous, but I trusted him not to kill me). The meal felt like a complete experience because he is an artist: each piece of sushi was an improvisation created as he responded both to the ingredients and to the people in front of him. Without question, this is dining as an elevated, astonishing experience.
Having said all that, the place I really enjoyed my food the most was at the yatai (mobile food stalls) that Fukuoka is famous for. These pop-ups – each one taken down during the day and put up at night by the Naka river – are polythene shacks where you are crammed on a bench while the cook makes tiny gyoza and pork yakitori in front of you, or doles out bowls of ramen. Everyone drinks highballs and the whole experience feels friendly and without pretension.
The same was true of Librun Craft Sake Brewery, which felt hip and fun: here sake comes in all sorts of flavours, including a horrible chocolatey one the owner had made for Valentine's day (my favourite was the verbena version).
After all that food and drink, I felt I needed refreshment of a different sort. I went to an onsen in the Miyako Hotel Hakata I had moved to right by Hakata station, the warm baths fed by natural spring water. A fuss was made because I have a tattoo on my back but a plaster was found to cover it up and I tried not to stare at the Japanese women, all of us naked, scrubbing themselves.
Every young woman I met in Fukuoka says they have no intention of getting married. Japan has a crisis of ageing on its hands (although I could not help but note the fantastic skin of the older women).
Anthony Bourdain always said don't eat in hotels, head to where the locals eat. Later on, I found a bustling joint within the main rail station, where large groups were celebrating, and everyone was eating fried chicken. This turned out to be the very best fried chicken ever – and I have lived in Louisiana. The Korean influence was there: every mouthful had a proper crunch because karaage chicken is double fried after being marinated.
As I headed away on the bullet train I knew I had been utterly spoilt with wonderful Michelin-starred food, but it is the yatai stalls I will remember. And the egg mayo sandwiches from the 7/11 that I snaffled while watching Sumo wrestling on TV. Did I mention them? Divine.
Essentials
Getting there
Suzanne travelled as a guest of Fukuoka City. For more information, see gofukuoka. She flew with Etihad from Heathrow to Tokyo and then with Jetstar to Fukuoka. There are multiple direct flights daily between Tokyo and Fukuoka, or it is a five-hour train journey via Shinkansen.
Staying there
Ritz Carlton at Fukuoka Daimyo Garden City 2-6-50, Daimyo, Chuo Ward, Fukuoka, has doubles from £545 per night, room only.
With the Style at 1 Chome-9-18 Hakataekiminami, Hakata Ward, Fukuoka, has doubles from £227, room only.
Miyako Hotel Hakata at 2 Chome-1-1 Hakataekihigashi, Hakata Ward, Fukuoka, has doubles from £197, room only.