Courses
The courses offered here are not designed to simplify or translate Japanese cuisine for convenience.
They are intended for those who wish to engage with it seriously — to understand how dishes relate, how decisions are made, and how technique, setting, and behaviour align.
Formats range from short foundational sessions to extended immersion and individual study.
Foundations: Structure & Balance in Japanese Cuisine
Duration: 3–4 hours
Format: Small group
Suitable for: Travellers, beginners, and those seeking a structural introduction to Japanese cuisine
This course introduces the underlying structure of Japanese meals.
Using the framework of ichijū sansai, it focuses on how dishes relate to one another — how balance, contrast, and restraint shape a coherent meal.
Attention is given to proportion, sequencing, and seasonal adjustment, offering a clear orientation to Japanese cuisine as a system rather than a just collection of recipes.
The Japanese Kitchen: Techniques & Judgement
Duration: 6–7 hours
Format: Small group
Suitable for: Enthusiastic home cooks and professionals seeking hands-on refinement
This course focuses on traditional Japanese cooking as practiced in Kyoto, where everyday cuisine is shaped by seasonality, efficiency, and restraint.
Participants work with a broader range of preparations, examining how technique functions across different dishes and situations.
Techniques are taught hands-on, with emphasis on repeatability, efficiency, and adaptation to circumstance.
Participants learn how decisions around cutting, seasoning, timing, and heat influence the outcome of a dish.
Kaiseki: Principles & Context
Duration: Half day
Format: Seminar with tasting
Suitable for: Cooks, professionals and individuals seeking conceptual understanding of kaiseki
This course approaches kaiseki not as a mere repertoire of dishes, but as a framework of decisions.
Through selected tastings, and explanation, participants explore how seasonality, sequence, and intention shape coherence across a meal.
The focus lies on understanding structure and context, rather than blind replication.
Deep Immersion: Technique & Context
Duration: 5 days
Format: Very small group
Suitable for: Cooks, professionals and returning participants
This course is designed for participants seeking sustained, rigorous engagement with Japanese cuisine beyond introductory formats.
Building on foundational principles, it focuses on the refinement of technique, judgement, and contextual awareness. Participants work through a broad range of preparations, revisiting core techniques across changing ingredients, seasons, and constraints.
Rather than progressing dish by dish, the course develops sensitivity to when and why a particular technique is chosen. Small adjustments in cut, heat, timing, and seasoning are examined for how they alter not only outcome, but intention.
Kaiseki principles are introduced as an organising framework — not as formal replication, but as a way of understanding coherence, restraint, and continuity across a meal.
The immersion extends beyond the kitchen. Time is spent choosing seasonal produce at the market, experiencing kaiseki meals in context, and engaging with the visual and material language that surrounds the food. Attention is given to ikebana, pottery, and lacquerware as elements that shape perception, rhythm, and balance.
What is offered is not mastery, but orientation: a way of seeing, deciding, and refining. Participants leave not only with memories of flavour, but with ways of thinking that can be carried into their own kitchens, informing decisions long after the course concludes.
Participation in Deep Immersion is by application.
This allows the group to work at a shared level and ensures sufficient time and attention for each participant.
At the Table
Conduct & Cultural Literacy
Duration: Half day
Format: Small group
Suitable for: Professionals working across cultures, including non-cooks
In Japanese culture, many decisions are shaped outside formal meetings. Meals are often where relationships are tested, trust is built, and alignment is quietly assessed. Understanding how to move within these settings is therefore essential for anyone working across cultures.
This course addresses seating, pacing, behaviour, and awareness in professional and cross-cultural contexts. It also covers table manners and how to eat dishes that may be unfamiliar to Western guests. While the principles are explained clearly, understanding is supported through tasting and direct experience rather than abstract instruction.
Rather than teaching rigid rules, the focus lies on recognising context, reading situations, and acting with discretion. The goal is not performance, but confidence — the ability to participate in Japanese dining settings without hesitation or missteps.
Private Courses & Individual Study
Private courses are offered for individuals or small groups seeking focused, tailored study.
Unlike the structured courses, private sessions are shaped entirely around the participant’s background, interests, and learning goals. This may include technical refinement, conceptual clarification, or deeper engagement with a specific aspect of Japanese cuisine or dining culture.
Private study is particularly suited to professionals, returning participants, or those preparing for work, travel, or long-term engagement in Japan.
Sessions may take place in the kitchen, at the table, or through shared meals and observation, depending on the focus of study.
Courses are offered in Japan and in Europe, with formats adapted to context and setting.
Courses in Japan
Courses in Europe
Some formats, including Deep Immersion, require an application to maintain course level and focus. Further details are shared upon inquiry.
For availability, scheduling, and general inquiries, please get in touch.
Japanese Cuisine 