Description
Tokyo is an explorer’s dream and a food-lover’s paradise. It’s the tsukune you eat at 2 am in a bar the size of a cupboard. It’s the cotton cheesecake you devour after lining up for 45 minutes with a bunch of excited teenagers. It’s the ramen you slurp after punching your order into a vending machine. It’s the tonkatsu you buy in a vast train-station basement.
Like the city itself, Tokyo Local honours the traditional cuisine that is cherished by locals and fervently adored by visitors, while embracing the modern trends that are defining the Tokyo of today. Tokyo Local is packed full of delicious yet approachable recipes,
so you can recreate the magic of Tokyo at home.
Caryn and Brendan Liew set up their pop-up Japanese café, chotto, in 2016, bringing the art of traditional ryokan-style breakfasts to the Australian city of Melbourne. The café transported diners to Japan on a cultural and culinary journey that traversed old and new, everything inspired from countryside dinners on the Nakasendo trail, to the food of Japan’s far north and deep south, and the animated feasts of Studio Ghibli. Head chef Brendan Liew spent time at the three-Michelin-starred Nihonryori Ryugin in Roppongi, Tokyo and Hong Kong, and also studied the art of ramen-making in Japan before delving into kappo and modern kaiseki cuisine. In Melbourne, he has worked at Kappo, Supernormal, Golden Fields and Bistro Vue. Together, Brendan and Caryn have travelled extensively through Japan’s countryside and major cities to explore, learn and live Japan’s culture and cuisine.
