POINT OF VIEW/ Isao Kumakura:Kyoto Michelin Guide may be harbinger of change

With introduction of the Michelin Guide for Kyoto and Osaka in October, Kyoto's restaurant scene faces a challenge.

Traditional Kyoto cuisine comprises four major styles. Yusoku cuisine stems from ancient court cooking, while the primarily vegetarian shojin cuisine spread with Zen Buddhism during the Middle Ages. Kaiseki cuisine developed with the tea ceremony, and home cooking called obanzai have been passed down from generation to generation among the ordinary people.

One of Japan's ancient capitals, Kyoto was long a political center. Home to the aristocracy, the samurai class and priests alike, people and things from across the nation came together to shape diversified food cultures and traditions.

In particular, table manners took their cue from shojin cuisine, which also regards the act of eating as ascetic training. The culture of offering food while entertaining guests emerged from the freshly prepared kaiseki dishes offered one after another during tea ceremonies of old.

As time went on, the tea ceremony's kaiseki cuisine led to changes in tableware designs. Servers of food paid great attention to coordinating dishes and exquisitely arranging the foods laid out on each plate.

Enhanced communication between those who prepared kaiseki dishes and those who sampled them led to further artistry in kaiseki presentation. Thanks to innovative ideas that refined the preparation and service, Kyoto food sophistication rapidly expanded.

After the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, Kansai-style cooking, including Kyoto cuisine, found its way to Tokyo. During the postwar period of rapid economic growth and subsequent boom in tourism, Kyoto cooking became a recognized "brand" nationwide.

Kyoto restaurants have always been supported by the people of Kyoto, a moderately sized city located in a wide basin where it takes just about 30 minutes or so to reach any destination. The people have come to attach great importance to human ties.

Most people have favorite restaurants for specific occasions. Customers keep their faith in them because they know they can get good food and service anytime they go there.

Restaurants also know the needs and preferences of their customers. They decorate rooms with kakejiku scrolls and flowers to suit customer tastes and serve elaborately prepared dishes to entertain them.

The Michelin Guide for Kyoto and Osaka, however, is targeting a different set of readers than those who frequent restaurants in Kyoto. Some proprietors of restaurants that have long served Kyoto cuisine see the guide as a nuisance, since their clientele and standards of food assessment are so different. They want Michelin readers to understand that point.

Be that as it may, even in Kyoto, which was believed to have taken the Michelin Guide in stride, the restaurant guide is attracting attention. Perhaps this is because Kyotoites are famous for loving gossip.

Such guides may serve a purpose. Still, Kyoto will not be bound by them. I don't think many people living in Kyoto will change their favorite restaurants just because of a Michelin guide ranking. Before long, we may hear comments like, "Michelin? What's that?"

But food cultures are lively and ever adapting. As globalization advances, they will continue to change. Kyoto cuisine is no exception. While some restaurants will stubbornly stick to tradition, others will attempt fusions with other food cultures. The framework that sets Kyoto cuisine apart is growing increasingly blurry.

Fewer customers these days understand and appreciate the subtle beauty and meaning of scrolls and other objects that restaurants use to enhance the atmosphere. At the same time, Kyoto restaurants that carefully select the tableware used to present their dishes are also on the wane.

Today, more people choose restaurants because of their reputation and few are confident of their own taste.

Even so-called first-class restaurants may serve poor-quality food. But no customer will complain loudly that it is no good.

Of course, if customers possessed such insight, restaurant guidebooks would not attract so much attention.

The food served at well-known Kyoto restaurants is expensive. The menus are nearly always fixed and you will rarely find something new added.

I wonder if young people will continue to be attracted to Kyoto cuisine. It may reach a dead end. Even purveyors of Kyoto cooking cannot sit back and do nothing. I hope the winds of change will blow again.

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The author is director of Hayashibara Museum of Art and professor emeritus at the National Museum of Ethnology. A former professor at the University of Tsukuba, Kumakura is an expert on the histories of Japanese culture and tea ceremony. He is the author of "Nihon Ryori no Rekishi" (History of Japanese cooking) and other books.