Perceiving artistic quality in a feel of the seasons
depicted in Japanese cooking
A 27-year veteran at a hotel washoku restaurant
Pyo Gil-Taek Pyo (46, South Korea)
It all began when he dined at a restaurant with his family. Each one of the dishes he ate at this upscale Japanese restaurant
was packed with a feel of the seasons. “I want to cook something like this myself, too, one day.” Pyo Gil-Taek, who has beeninterested in food and cooking ever since he was in high school, took his first step as chef in 1989 at Lotte Hotel, Seoul’s
leading 5-star hotel. “If I were to study cooking at all, I wanted to study it at the finest place” was the reason he chose to workat a Japanese restaurant inside a hotel twenty-seven years ago.
Pyo studied the basics as a cook, focusing on kaiseki-ryori and sushi, then, in 1996, he switched to Hanazono, a Japaneserestaurant housed inside The Ritz Carlton Seoul, another of the city’s luxury hotels where he still works today. Here, besides
undergoing training at the affiliated hotels The Ritz Carlton Tokyo and The Ritz Carlton Osaka, he also had the chance to study
Japanese cooking in 2003 at Musashino Cooking College in Tokyo. His experiences while in Tokyo left a strong impression onhim. He was deeply moved by how a single cooked vegetable dish could express such profound aroma and fragrance.
By 2004, Pyo was promoted head chef of Japanese food at The Ritz Carlton Seoul. At present, he vigorously carries out wideranging activities, in addition to working inside the kitchen: he teaches Japanese cuisine at the hotel’s Cooking Club, and evenappears on TV cooking programs to display his culinary skills. He continues to study and improve his craft day and night,
hoping to be recognized by many people for his culinary talent and skills, and one day become a chef whom everyone
instantly calls to mind when hearing the word “Japanese cuisine.”
He feels that the appeals of Japanese dishes lie in the fact that it emphasizes not only taste, but also elements of enjoying
them with the eyes. He perceives artistic quality in the clever way of using food ingredients and a sense of color to express theemotions associated with the four seasons. When he himself cooks Japanese food, he makes sure to arrange the five colors orgreen , red, yellow, white and black, which also happen to be the basis of Korean cooking. This concept is based on the theoryof Ying-Yang and the five elements that had been passed down from China since the ancient times. It claims that uniformly
ingesting the elements of wood, fire, earth, metal and water which each of the five colors of green, red, yellow, white andblack symbolize, helps a person maintain his or her mental and physical balance. The dish that Pyo has created for thisWashoku World Challenge is “Crab dumplings steamed in the shell.” This dish, too, incorporates all the five colors: spinach forgreen, crab for red, yuzu for yellow, dumplings for white, and burdock for black.
In addition, he sites surimi as the key factor featured in the dish he has created on this occasion. This is one of the ingredientsthat Pyo has always loved to use. He describes its characteristic as “having a distinct flavor of fish and a soft texture; thewhiteness of its color enhances other ingredients.” For this particular dish, he emphasized the redness of crabmeat withsurimi. “Instead of simply boiling crabmeat and eating it, by turning it into surimi, I was able to elevate the quality as a dish. In
other words, surimi added a sense of dignity to the overall dish,” sparing no words to praise the ingredients.
Regarding his own future, Pyo says, “I have worked at a hotel for 27 years. If I were to quit the restaurant and go on my own, I
would love to open a sushi shop.” Since sushi has become popular in South Korea, like in other countries, he wants to contrive
tastes that suit the Korean palate, and serve a set menu featuring nimono and soup that reflects his unique tastes. He hopes
to perform well at the Washoku World Challenge, and move closer to his future, and show, to the people of South Korea, aneven more upgraded version of his Japanese cooking. These are his lofty dreams, and he is committed to making them cometrue.

Crab dumplings steamed in the shell