Ramona Depares takes a break from the more typical Sicilian delights to experience a bonafide, traditional Japanese dinner at Toshi in the heart of Ragusa.
The hostess solemnly poured the tea into the bowl, offering it to her guest, together with traditional Japanese sweets to balance out the bitter taste of the tea. What I was witnessing, pre-dinner, was a genuine, traditional Japanese tea ceremony. Only thing is, this was not Japan, but the decidedly more prosaic region of Ragusa, Sicily.
The location is Toshi, one of the Mediterranean’s most renowned Japanese restaurants. This might take many of you by surprise. After all, Sicily is known for amazing yields when it comes to dining out – whether it’s fine dining or even closer to the earth’s roots. Japanese cuisine, maybe not so much – or so you’d think.
Enter Toshi, the restaurant that beautifully blends the best culinary traditions from Japan with a more contemporary ambience and approach. Headed by Milo, the award-winning executive chef, Toshi takes everything you expect from a sushi dinner and takes it to the next level.
During our evening there – which was to feature an incredible array of stunningly presented sushi and sashimi dishes, incidentally – proceedings kicked off with the fascinating ritual that is the tea drinking ceremony in Japan. As the name itself suggests, this involves the ceremonial preparation of the tea. Details of the ceremony vary according to the tea mistress, the location and even the time of year. Certain basics, however, remain common such as the silent bow and the removal of footwear.
The ceremony does achieve its intention, which is that of putting us in the frame of mind to enjoy all manner of things Japanese. And enjoy we do. Toshi takes its sushi seriously. Which is to say, that this is not your average fast sushi kind of place. No, this is the restaurant you come to when you are after the real deal, when you want to take your time enjoying Japanese cuisine, understanding what you’re eating and appreciating all the different flavours.
There is something utterly seductive in biting into a slice of sashimi that has been prepared using only the best quality fish
We started out with a mix of starters, just to get on the right track. Milo’s recommendations included the Yakitori (skewers of grilled chicken with terriyaki sauce), Edamame (soy beans in pod), the Tori Kara Age (Japanese fried chicken with ginger and sesame oil) and the Ika Salad (a concoction of squid and algae).
Because we were a big group, we decided to take advantage in order to taste as many different dishes off the menu as possible. Toshi encourage a mix and match approach and, before too long, our long table was a happy and sociable mess of people exchanging dishes and encouraging each other try out different things. This is where the Mediterranean, happy-go-lucky approach to dining comes in very useful. We took this latter approach, which allowed us to enjoy our dinner with little formality, with no raised eyebrows from our fellow diners or Barbara and Giorgio, the super-friendly young couple that own Toshi – or, indeed, any of the wonderfully warm serving staff. It was a bit like having the best of two opposite worlds.
Our mains were vary varied, the one thing in common was the stunning presentation of each dish and the kaleidoscope of flavours that took over our tastebuds with every bite. Toshi only use top-notch produce from fish to vegetables, meat and seasoning. There is something utterly seductive in biting into a slice of sashimi that has been prepared using only the best quality fish.
The traditional Japanese favourites are all on the menu, of course. The maki section is pretty memorable – particularly the Tempura and the Banzai (hot!). Check out the Chef’s Special (rolls of fish and vegetables rolled with rice and nori dipped in soy sauce and wasabi) and the Milo Special Roll (crab tempura, avocado, kabayaki spatula, covered with salmon and tuna topping with wakame and miso sauce) if you have space.
The Temaki rolls are also fun – little seaweed cone concoctions filled with wonderful flavours that can be anything from crabmeat to raw tuna, eel, raw salmon and veggies.
If you’re seriously hungry, make a pitstop in the soup section – the miso ramen and the udon are both pretty amazing. And, if mixing and matching sushi is not your thing, there’s also the fillet section (meat and fish), cooked on the teppanyaki and accompanied by veggies and rice.
Toshi is located in Via Mariannina Coffa, 24, 97100 Ragusa, Sicily.
www.toshi.it