Japan's Worst Beats France's Best.(Society and the Arts; SPECIAL REPORT)(Interview)(Excerpt)

Byline: Sophie Grove

A critic explains why Tokyo has eaten Paris for breakfast.

Giles Coren is the restaurant critic for The Times of London; his column provides wry, often searing commentary on contemporary cuisine. He talked to Sophie Grove recently about Tokyo's new Michelin ranking, the merits of Japanese cooking and the flaws that left France in second place. Excerpts:

Grove: Are you surprised that Tokyo has been awarded 191 stars?

Coren: It's no surprise to me. I would say the worst meal I had in Japan was better than the best meal I've ever had in France. I think the Japanese are way ahead. In Tokyo there's a combination of futuristic cleanliness, technique and a sense of direction with a very old-fashioned approach to service. Whatever kind of restaurant you go into you're treated with wonderful respect by the staff and are expected to treat them in a similar way. In sushi bars you actually see businessmen in suits handing presents to the chef.

What about Japanese food?

In Japan everything is about rawness; everything is about what comes out of the ground. Everything is seasonal. That's what we're just coming back to after years of processed food: bourgeois rubbish for about 200 years, then 50 years of processed. In Japan they only cook things if they really, really have to, and the Japanese have been doing that for 10,000 years.