10月号のCreationで、
現在注目されている“低糖質メニュー”でご協力いただいた、レストラン「ファロ資生堂」の中尾崇宏シェフにお話をお伺いしました。
We spoke with Takahiro Nakao, chef of Restaurant Faro Shiseido, who shared his expertise with us in the Creation column of our October issue regarding the “low carbohydrate menu” that is currently garnering attention.
祖母が料理上手で、小さい頃から台所に立つ姿を見たり、お手伝いをしていた影響もあって、調理科のある高校に進学し、調理師免許を取りました。高校生の頃は和食の道に進みたいと思っていましたが、高校時代にパスタ屋でアルバイトをしたのをきっかけに、イタリアンにも魅かれ高校卒業後、縁あって、原宿のイタリアンで約３年働きました。その後、知人の関係で、イタリアのロンバルディアの料理店で勤めることができたんです。その頃は、イタリア語が話せなかったのでかなり勉強しました。昼はお店で働き、夜は語学の勉強という感じで、充実した日々でしたね。
My grandmother is an excellent cook, and since I was a kid, I always watched and helped her in the kitchen. This inspired me to enter a high school with a culinary arts program which is where I acquired my chef’s license. In high school, I aspired to become a Japanese cuisine chef, but after working part-time at a pasta restaurant while I was a student, I developed a passion for pasta. After graduating from high school, fate led me to work at an Italian restaurant in Harajuku, where I worked for about three years. After that, an acquaintance helped me get a job at a restaurant in Lombardy, Italy. At that time, I couldn’t speak any Italian, so I worked really hard to learn the language. I worked at the restaurant during the day, studied Italian at night, and lived each day to the fullest.
ロンバルディアからスタートして、3年半で10軒ほどの店舗で修行しましたが、なかでもピエモンテにある「カフェ・グロッピ」で働いたことが印象深いですね。その店のシェフはそのときの私より3つか4つ上で24、25歳かな、このお店もオープンしたばかりでしたが、自分とあまり歳の変わらないシェフが、自分の店をもち、完成度の高い仕事を美しくこなしている姿に驚き感動しました。次の年にはミシュランで１つ星を獲得していました。とにかく彼の料理は美味しかったんです。彼との出会いは料理人人生において重要な出来事だと思っています。
Starting in Lombardy, I received training at about 10 different restaurants over a period of three and a half years. During that time, working at Café Groppi in Piedmont left an especially deep impression on me. The restaurant’s chef was about 24 or 25, which was 3 or 4 years older than I was at the time, and he had just opened this restaurant. I was amazed and impressed that a chef who was not much older than I was had opened his own restaurant and produced such beautiful and high quality work. The following year, he earned a Michelin star. His work was absolutely beautiful. Meeting him was one of the most important events in my career as a chef.
イタリアで修行し始めたときは、星付とか高級店で修行したい！とばかり思っていて、そういう店舗を渡り歩きましたが、ある日 「カフェ・グロッピ」での修行中にシェフの家に招かれて彼のお母さんの手料理をご馳走になったんです。バーニャカウダや野菜料理、鶏料理だったのですが、純粋に美味しかった。イタリアンの本質的な魅力に触れることができた気がします。素材の美味しさを活かしたシンプルな味付けのイタリアン。今の僕の料理も、イタリアンという枠には入っていますが、素材を最大限に活かして 、柔軟な発想を心がけています。
When I first began my training in Italy, my heart was set on working at Michelin-starred or high-end restaurants, and I moved from one posh restaurant to another. One day, during my training at Café Groppi, the chef invited me to his home, where I had the opportunity to eat his mother’s home cooking. The food she served from the bagna cauda to the vegetable and chicken dishes were genuinely delicious. It felt as if I had an up-close and personal encounter with the essence of what makes Italian food so appealing. The Italian dishes were made using simple seasonings that brought out the natural flavor of the ingredients. Currently, I specialize in Italian cuisine, and I strive to use my imagination to bring out the natural flavor of the ingredients in full force.
今、日本の地方の料理や“地方性”にとても興味があり、いろいろなお店を訪ねています。そういった店舗の特徴は、地産地消で無理をしない料理なんです。季節感だったり、伝統だったり、守るべきものをしっかり継承している。「ファロ資生堂」は恵まれたことに東京・銀座で食材も情報も何でも手に入ってしまいます。７月～８月に千葉でとれるトウモロコシも入ってくるし、９月にはもう少し北のエリアのトウモロコシも手に入る。どちらも美味しいのですが、そうなると、季節感が出にくいんです。だからこそこの環境を活かした、ファロならではの地方性や特別性をどのように持たせるかがテーマだと感じています。
At the moment, I am very interested in “localized” cooking so I have been visiting all kinds of local restaurants throughout Japan. These restaurants are distinctive for serving dishes using locally sourced products without straining to procure ingredients. Conveying traditions and a sense of the season in their cooking are some of the values that have been passed down from generation to generation. Despite being located in Ginza, Tokyo, Faro Shiseido is blessed with the ability to procure everything we need from ingredients to information. We can procure corn from Chiba in July and August, and go further north to get our corn in September. The corn from both areas is delicious but this accessibility makes it difficult to convey a sense of the season. This is why I feel it is important to draw on our propitious position to create a localized and distinctive flavor that is unique to Faro.
「健康」であることだと思います。人間の内面からでる美しさをつかさどる重要な要素は食が担っていると思うのです。食と健康、食と医療、食と美は切っても切れない関係です。そこに“美味しい”ということが加わればなおさら良いのではないでしょうか。
「ファロ資生堂」が取り組んでいる低糖質メニュー「Luce（ルーチェ）」は今後必要な料理だと考えています。
また料理は見た目も美しくなければなりません。それを表現するためのインプットも欠かせないですね。美術館に行ったり、映画を観たり、もちろん料理の専門書での勉強も必須です。幸い、様々なことに興味があり、吸収するのは好きなので、これからもそれらを料理に活かしていけたらいいなと思っています。美味しい料理を食べた記憶は日常でも、例えば旅行先でも、すごく大切な想い出の1つになることが多い。そんな時間を提供できるようにしたいですね。
I think beauty is about being healthy. I think food plays an extremely important role in promoting beauty from the inside of our bodies. The relationships between food and health, food and medical care, food and beauty cannot be severed. Ensuring that the food served is delicious further enhances these relationships. I believe that low-carbohydrate dishes “Luce” will become more nessesary at Faro Shiseido in the future.
The food we serve must also be appealing to the eye. In order to create beautiful dishes I need to feed my senses. I do this by going to museums, watching movies and of course reading books on the subject of cooking. Fortunately, I have a wide range of interests and love to absorb all kinds of information, so I hope to continue to incorporate these aspects into my cooking. Eating delicious food is often one of the most important elements in creating cherished memories in our daily lives, or for instance, during our travels. I hope to contribute to the creation of such occasions for our diners.
1977年栃木県生まれ。調理師学校卒業後、東京を中心に各店で研鑽を積む。1999年にイタリアに渡り「ロカンダ・ベッキア・パヴィア」、「カフェ・グロッピ」、「トレジィリ・イン・コロナータ」などで腕を磨く。2005年に資生堂パーラーに入社し「ファロ資生堂」配属。2007年に同店シェフに就任。
Born in Tochigi Prefecture in 1977. After graduating from a cooking school, he received training at several restaurants mainly in the Tokyo area. He went to Italy in 1999 and worked on improving his culinary skills at such restaurants as Locanda Vecchia Pavia, Café Groppi, and Très Jolie in Colonnata. He joined Shiseido Parlour in 2005 and was assigned to Faro Shiseido where he became a chef in 2007.