ENOWA YUFUIN — Restaurant in Yufu

Yufuin is home to the greatest concentration of luxury ryokans in the entire country. There are a wealth of top-notch accommodation choices that have their own unique selling points, and I doubt I'll ever be able to visit them all. Not to mention, in just the past few years more than a half-dozen new properties have burst onto the scene, among the fresh and innovative new entries is Enowa Yufuin.||Its main calling card is the farm to table cuisine developed by Tashi Gyamtso, a Tibetan-born culinary whiz who was formerly served as the sous chef at New York's acclaimed Michelin 2-star restaurant, Blue Hill at Stone Barns. He has also apprenticed at Kikunoi Honten and has extensively studied the farming and cultivation techniques in Japan with the famous farm consultant Teruhisa Ishiwari helping as a consultant. For years, Enowa Yufuin's owner dreamed of opening a unique ryokan in Yufuin, but wanted to do something different. He had long been a farm-to-table advocate, and travelled throughout the U.S. to learn about the concept. That's when he ran into Tashi when visiting Blue Hill at Stone Barns, and knew Tashi would be the key to enabling a brand new dining experience with Japanese ingredients. After several years of recruiting Tashi to the cause, he finally won him over, resulting in the birth of 18-room ryokan Enowa Yufuin several years later (June 2023 to be exact.) Tashi himself runs a farm nearby, and tends to the fields every morning in search of the best produce, which influences what he chooses to concoct for that day's dinner.||We found Tashi's creations extraordinary, and better than anywhere else that practices similar concepts. We found that Enowa's dining experienced eclipsed even that of SingleThread Farm - Restaurant in Sonoma, the previous benchmark in our minds (just barely, though.) I spent a great deal of time talking with Tashi, and he attributed the any difference to the superior Japanese ingredients, claiming that the cultivation ethos in Japan is "quality over quantity," and their meticulous approach, highly sensitive taste buds, and the fertile volcanic soil around Yufuin had a great deal to do with that. Regardless, I give him the highest of marks for creating flavors that bring out the best that Oita Prefecture has to offer and is reason alone to stay at Enowa. Meals are served in the restaurant, although we opted to pay a hefty surcharge for the privilege of dining in one of the two private rooms (we enjoy private interactions with our servers during meals.) However, the tables in the main restaurant are spaced out quite a bit, and the high lounge chairs enable a high degree of privacy.||The rest of the Enowa experience was very nice but not as mind-blowing. As a new property, one would expect everything to be fresh, clean and amenity-filled, and for the most part, it was. We were puzzled at the choice of toilets, however... it was a lower-end Toto model that didn't have a sensor that allowed the seat to automatically raise and lower, nor did the control panel have buttons that allowed the user to do it manually. The seats were not heated, either. We also noticed the bidet nozzle was a bit less clean that we would have preferred - we notified the manager about this, and he vowed to train his housekeeping staff to clean the bathrooms more vigorously in the future. The room aesthetic was ultra modern, which was fine given the young age of Enowa. Our 165m² "Hilltop Sky Pavilion A, Yufudake View" Villa was one of the two top rooms, with a panoramic view of the valley below and both an Onsen and pool on the deck. The villa had vaulted ceilings, two sinks, heated floors in both the living area and bathroom, a real closet, electronic blinds and an array of bathroom amenities, each of them travel sized and individually packaged. On top of that, the down comforter was very light, fluffy and warm. One nit to pick had to do with the room description - yes, we were able to see Mt. Yufudake, but only if we stepped out onto the deck and turned 90 degrees to the left; given that Yufudake is located on the far end of the valley, and the room was looking towards the other side of the valley, I definitely would not market the room as having a Yufudake view. I noticed that most of the other rooms did not offer views or a pool, by the way. Still, even the entry level accommodations have 78m² of space, and all rooms offer Onsen baths.||Service was polite and professional, but in no way did it remind us of the proactive, intimate and enthusiastic service experience we had at Sanso Murata. We had to call the front desk for the same request several times, for instance, and it took at least 15 minutes buggy drivers to show up each time we requested a ride. The assistant manager (the GM was on leave during the time we stayed at Enowa) seems to be trying hard, but even he appeared to be a bit on the inexperienced side from what I can gather. On the plus side, the towels were refreshed several times a day, including while we were at dinner.||If you're into great cuisine that is mainly vegetable-based, it doesn't get any better than Enowa Yufuin and Satoyama Jujo. I'd give a slight nod to Enowa, but be aware that they're quite different - Tashi's cuisine is mainly based on farmed produce, whereas Keiko Kuwakino gets many of her ingredients from the mountains in Northern Japan, meaning she serves a relatively higher concentration of foraged fungi, ferns and root-based plants. And the resulting dishes reflect the difference, making each of them uniquely different. Yes, service is not as refined as many luxury properties with longer histories, but the modern and spacious rooms, in-room Onsen and the view of the valley all contributed to an overall...

Exceptional. To call this hotel and both meals anything other than extraordinary would be insufficient. The room featured a view of Yufu-dake that was to die for, and the private onsen allowed for us weary travelers to ease in, and melt a bit before we decided to have our minds blown with the dinner service.

As much as I love a good hotel, almost everything was a prelude for the food that awaited us. Please keep this in mind when making a reservation here. As my focus is in food I want to dive into both the dinner and breakfast that we received. For reference I have appended photos of both meals together with the menus.

Tashi, the chef's personality is represented in every morsel of food available. With a farm-to-table philosophy, the food is nevertheless inventive and richly flavorful. Every talented chef has their own unique flavor profile that they cultivate over the years of working in the kitchen and if I had to summarize the food here, it would be classy, elegant, and richly flavored. The flavors are never aggressive, but understated, and allow the intrinsic qualities of each and every ingredient to shine through.

For this reason terroir becomes an immediately important aspect of the dining experience. This is not just a tasting of the chef's skills, but of the particular upbringing and story of all the food grown here. There is nothing done to disguise flavor, or maybe in what will be a deficiency to some, amplify it. The flavors tend to stick to what they are good at being: themselves.

This in turn I think plays into the chef's culinary personality and philosophy. The flavors rarely tend to be extraneous additions, but the evolution of the inner qualities of the ingredients. This itself accounts for the ability of the chef: by knowing that doing this is crucial to the dining experience, his personality becomes apparent in the cooking.

For me (perhaps those in my group will have differing opinions) this was most emblematically symbolized by the Bouquet dish. Meant to resemble a verdant garden, the flavors of lush and as fragrant as any floral arrangement. This, without being crass or too extroverted. The starting assemblage of vegetables with a dipping sauce was similarly stripped down and absolutely delectable.

The breakfast too was exceptional, with the pumpkin soup being among the best soups I have ever partaken of. It is really that good. My only remark would be that the pancake at the end, while delicious, was somewhat overkill. With all the breads and everything accompanying the course we were definitely quite full. But as I like to say, if you eat something truly worthwhile there is...

I arrived in Fukuoka on a day when almost 500 flights were cancelled back at home due massive typhoon Saola, so getting to Enowa Yufuin was such a gift and blessing. ||Style. Contemporary, minimalist & elegant hotel with an art gallery aesthetic ||Setting. Calming little spot near Mount Yufu, yet only 5 minutes drive away from downtown ||Explore. Wander pretty Yufuin downtown for cute shops & food, the Kengo Kuma Comico Art Museum. Beppu is a 30 minutes drive away||Rooms. |My room (202) had a semi outdoor hot spring which I soaked in while listening to the rustling of leaves, it wasn’t quite as hot as I would like but maybe they dialed down the temperature because of me. There was an unexpected and calming rock plant in the sleek room. ||@ the hotel. |Tranquil vibe. Sustainably minded amenities, no single use plastics. Loved the super thoughtful staff here too. ||Food & drinks @ Restaurant Jimgu. |A beautiful, creative, & whimsical farm driven tasting menu served on exquisite tableware, paired with interesting sake, wine & etc picked by Makoto Tominaga. Even peppermint tea was above par as were from freshly plucked leaves. Friendly & talented Tashi Gyamtso is a fantastic chef with Blue Hill @ Stone Barns & Kikunoi Honten pedigree ||Prices. Not cheap @ $947 for entry level rooms to $2400 for pool villa but price did include the fabulous and delicious dinner experience ||Rating. 5/5||I’ve stayed in 3 hotels in nearby Beppu before but if I am ever in this area again, coming back here is a...