Pottery lined up on shelves and paperweights within reach. Pieces of traditional Japanese craft are all about in the Hyatt Centric Kanazawa’s Five – Grill & Lounge. There are no labels, and it’s easy to forget that they are works of art.

It’s a striking difference from seeing them on a display stand or through glass, and it’s a reminder that crafts are have both beauty and utility to enrich out lives.

“There are so many pieces, I can’t remember all of them,” says Manabu Ichizuka, head chef of Five – Grill & Lounge. “I always want to encourage more conversation between dining customers and serving staff. So, I think articles with stories behind them scattered throughout the restaurant make for good ice breakers.”

Ichizuka is originally from Komatsu City in Ishikawa Prefecture. He’d been a head chef at
international hotel chain Hyatt’s restaurants in Tokyo for many years, and in 2020, after thirteen years of being away from Ishikawa Prefecture, returned to Kanazawa with the opening of the Hyatt Centric Kanazawa.

The foundations of a chef, a crafted “memory of taste”

Ichizuka says his origins as a chef started in his childhood experiences in Komatsu.

“I’ve had a nose for these things since I was a child. There was a rice cake shop near my home, so my mother and I could smell if they were cooking red rice that day, or how they were having simmered fish for dinner. Both my mother and grandmother were excellent cooks, so they made everything themselves, even Japanese plums and pickles. We never went out to buy them. At that age, I used to complain that I wanted to eat out like everyone else [laughs], but now that I think on it, I was spoiled. I feel again and again my mother’s and grandmother’s tastes became the heart of my cooking.”

Growing up in such an environment, Ichizuka naturally became interested in cooking, and went to study at a cooking school in Kanazawa. After graduating, he went to work at a hotel restaurant in Kanazawa City and began his career in earnest.

Ichizuka then honed his skills at hotel restaurants in the Hokuriku region. In between, he received experience training overseas in Paris, Brittany, and Lyon.

“When I was there, I kept thinking that Japanese people are like farmers. We plant the seeds. We grow them. We harvest them. We eat them. There’s an underlying sense of flow in that kind preparation, but [the French] are completely different. They are more like hunters. That is, they have a sense of getting everything done in one shot. Japanese people tend to think that if you have a lot of work, you go out early in the morning, and you work overtime. But they would always arrive at the last minute [laughs]. Instead, their hands move quickly when they’re working. It’s like they’re trying to concentrate all their work into that time frame. I feel like that’s the difference in national character and culture.”

Even so, Ichizuka discovered that the dexterity, diligence and delicacy particular to the Japanese were highly valued overseas as well. There are few European restaurants with no Japanese staff. Many of them are in key positions. I realized that Japanese sensibilities, in both technique and thinking, can be applied abroad.”

Additionally, Ichizuka notes that Japan’s kaiseki culture and use of pottery have a great influence on the European culinary world.

I think there are many overseas chefs who’ve come to Japan and learned from kaiseki. In recent years, French cuisine has become smaller and more multi-course, with about seventeen dishes being served over the meal. There are also more liberal approaches the Japanese hadn’t thought of, like serving something on the handle of a bowl or on a broken plate. France is a country of artisans, so there’s a trend of hiring artisans to custom craft new dinner ware.”

You have to test your limits to know them

In 2007, Ichizuka was appointed as head chef of the French Kitchen at the Grand Hyatt Tokyo, and moved there. Despite being in a stable position as the head chef of a hotel in Hokuriku, the decision was a challenge for him, who was then already over 40 years old. Ichizuka has a policy of “thinking everything over very carefully before I make such a decision.”

“As a chef, I’ve always wanted the challenge of working in Tokyo at least once. I want to do something right at my limits, but I don’t know what they are until I succeed or fail. I have to test myself to know for sure. When cooking, I go through the process of wringing the fish and birds myself. The same goes for my choices. I need to buy something, actually use it, test it myself, and judge whether something is a good fit or not. Just listening to other’s recommendations or trying to look at it indirectly isn’t enough.”

After leaving for Tokyo, Ichizuka looked back to his hometown and realized, “Hokuriku has everything.”

“When it comes to ingredients, there are the fields, the mountains and the sea. And there is the local pottery on which to serve them. In Ishikawa alone, you have porcelain, glaze and lacquer. In Toyama, you have copper and glass, and in Fukui, you have cutlery. In returning here after thirteen years, I realize once again that everything connected to cuisine is in Hokuriku. The city of Kanazawa itself is a cultural hub. When I was first living here, I took it all for granted and didn’t see it any other way.”

In 2020, Ichizuka was entrusted with the dining at Hyatt Centric Kanazawa, the first Hyatt hotel to be in Hokuriku. The restaurant’s name “Five” is said to be inspired by “Kaga Gosai” and “Kutani Gosai,” the “five colors” of Ishikawa’s traditional Japanese crafts of Kaga-yuzen kimono silk dyeing and Kutani porcelain, respectively.

“I favor the phrase ‘tradition and innovation’. In order to maintain tradition, we need to
innovation, and we can only innovate because the tradition is there. Kanazawa has created its own culture by deftly combining the old and the new. That spirit is one of the things I want to cherish in our cuisine.”

The logo of Five – Grill & Lounge (a spiral overlapping at five points) also represents the flow of people moving about the restaurant and the restaurant’s aim to be a place that creates new movements while also respecting the established traditions of Kanazawa. The dinning area includes five spaces with different concepts, and each is decorated with various artifacts, each of which can be viewed freely.

“I’m eager to make exciting suggestions, but I would also like to remain close to the local
community as a dinning room for every day use. I want people to get to know this place better, and most of all, I want them to enjoy using it regularly.”

Despite its appearance as hotel fine dining, the price points of Five – Grill & Lounge have been set reasonably to encourage visits from regulars. Please come enjoy this newly built hotel restaurant, which offers a little something you won’t find in museums or galleries.