A (Japanese) pleasure for your palate
Not everything that has fish and rice is sushi . Let's make it clear. We may like it just the same, but this dynamic that we are tending towards due to the demand for cheap Japanese food is moving us further and further away from authentic Japanese cuisine.
“ Patience, measure and passion ” are some of the elements that Mario Payán saw that were missing from the Japanese food scene in Madrid and, after his 14 years in Kabuki , where he started and trained until he became head chef and got the Michelin star for the Kabuki on Avenida Presidente Carmona, he decided to open his own restaurant based on the most traditional cuisine, or kaiseki.
Kappo literally means "to cook" , but cooking following some of the guidelines of "this sophisticated traditional Japanese cuisine, or kaiseki", which requires the preparation of a menu based on seven techniques (robata, steam, fried, raw, grill, tempura and sweet), with five colors (red, white, green-blue, yellow and black-dark) and five flavors (salty, sweet, sour, spicy and bitter).
“ I take it very seriously ”, He says, although it is only necessary to observe him on the other side of his bar, completely exposed to the diner, shaping the nigiris to believe him. "There are no toppings or anything that can alter the flavor of the fish," he says. And we confirm. He, in fact, apply wasabi and soy to each piece , and you can include more or less according to the taste of each one.
With Kappo, Mario wanted to fill that gap, no one seemed to want to fill it in Madrid: “Among the most classic, classic restaurants, like Soy and Izariya”, he explains. And, precisely, he found a place not far from both, in Chamberí, near the popular Ponzano.
Mario Payán triumphs in Madrid behind Kappo
The small place is dominated by a large black bar with about 14 stalls for diners and two sushiman stalls. . Mario is always in one of them and from there he controls the entire living room and the kitchen, where they prepare the rest of the dishes (the sashimi, champonzu and ginger; the chicken dumpling, tofu, black garlic and American sauce or the cococha of cod and saikyo miso) . He knows where each table is on the menu and he prepares the nigiris, with the fish he has found that day in the market, at an almost hypnotic pace.
The menu, according to what he says, will change so that regulars don't get bored, and because of the seasonality of the market. In addition, he is working with the maturation of the fish to offer other types of flavors. And what he won't change for now is his already original pinkish rice. "Now the canons state that it should be 'as white as the Buddha's bones,'" he says. “But on a visit to the Sushi Museum in Japan, I found out that back in the 1880s or 1890s, the rice because of the type of vinegar and maceration they used was pink ”. And so he has decided to do it in Kappo to teach something to the initiated and the uninitiated " how it should be or the closest thing to sushi in Japan ”.
Kappo Restaurant
WHY GO?
Because if you say you are passionate about Japanese cuisine, it is a must visit. And if you are not yet, you will end up being, after a visit to the bar Mario Payan.
ADDITIONAL FEATURES
It's not only a gastronomic delight, it's also a Japanese cooking lesson. The closeness with Mario Payán: if you sit at the bar he invites you to ask him whatever you want, that's why he designed the bar that way. And if you want to continue learning, he organizes small private cooking classes. ask him too.
IN DATA
Address: Breton de los Herreros, 54. 28003, Madrid
Phone: 910 42 00 66
Schedule: Tuesday to Saturday from 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. and from 8:30 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. Closed Sunday and Monday.
Super Mario menu price: 65 euros
Follow @irenecrespo\_