Roland Trettl meets Stefan Mörth & Kenichiro Ooe

The best of both worlds

Styrian Stefan Mörth and Japanese Kenichiro Ooe complement each other at the stove perfectly. In October they're leaving Tokyo and coming to Salzburg.

The Park Hyatt in Tokyo is well-known to lovers of Japan and film enthusiasts alike, because both are fans of "Lost in Translation", the film which was for the most part shot in this unique hotel with the equally unique 52nd-floor bar, and which inimitably caricatures the differences between the two cultures. I was hugely looking forward to meeting Park Hyatt Executive Chef Stefan Mörth and his Japanese alter ego, head chef Kenichiro Ooe. As far as I am concerned Japan, and especially Tokyo, are amongst the most fascinating of places, but also the most contradictory.

For more than a year I managed the "Marine Terrace" there for Eckart Witzigmann and know this country like the back of my hand, even down to a three-day stay in prison because of differing opinions on the subject of residence permit and work permit. Whenever I see "Lost in Translation" star Bill Murray sit jetlagged on the edge of the bed, I know exactly what he's thinking. Of course Stefan Mörth has even more extensive experience of Japan. The Styrian, who has already worked at Witzigmann's "Aubergine" and Winkler's "Residenz", has been working at the Hyatt for six years, now in charge of around 110 cooks. The Hyatt's Japanese flagship restaurant is the "Kozue", managed by Ooe-san. Together the three of us agreed on two, eight-course menus for Hangar-7. Stefan's menu has a Japano-European flavour, whilst Kenichiro's is constructed in the highly traditional, kaiseki style.

Kaiseki is something special – it's an ode to nature and the seasons. But I also find that kaiseki is not mega-difficult to cook. I don't have to study rice for three years to know how to make sushi. I realise that I'm thus completely distancing myself from Japanese cuisine's philosophical superstructure, but I'm sticking to my guns – however great perfect sushi rice may be, it's not an impossible task for non-Japanese. Ingredients are much more difficult, nay, even impossible. It's impossible to write about products in Japan unless you have seen them for yourself. A simple apple, a straightforward strawberry, or a top-class slice of kobe beef – you only find quality like this in Japan. The same applies to the prices, by the way.

Melons on which you can easily spend 150 dollars. 400 grammes of cherries for 200 dollars, 60 dollars for a kilo of tomatoes, 1,000 dollars per kilo of kobe beef. I'm telling you this because I must honestly admit that the Hangar-7 concept has reached its limits here. I simply can't find proper kobe beef in Europe. And there's nothing in the whole of Europe that corresponds to Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market. Despite globalisation and the massive lengths we go to at Hangar-7, I have to come to terms with it. Yet I still believe we've put together a couple of superb dishes. Snapper en papillote, for example, with ginger, lemon grass, chilli, coriander and mushrooms. Sensational served with a complementary sake. Or sashimi of yellowtail on crabmeat salad, with yossu vinaigrette. Stefan's espuma of sushi rice with oysters won me over as an especially successful example of how European culinary art can be combined with Japanese tradition.

Stefan and Kenichiro are a team that is used to working together, sometimes with a surprising switch in roles. Suddenly European Stefan is as pernickety as the Japanese, whilst reserved Japanese Ooe suddenly exhibits bone-dry humour. He's happy to point out his government fugu licence and recount that he "first killed a man" with this lovely fish...

Both of them then very kindly invited me to breakfast with them at the fish market at six in the morning. There was egg yolk marinated in miso, rice with a fermented soya bean gruel called nato, as well as sea cucumber innards. I really appreciate invitations and accordingly bravely tried a little of everything, but there's one thing I can promise you faithfully right now – we'll never serve this combination at Hangar-7.

Recorde by Christoph Schulte • Fotos: Red Bull Photofiles / Osamu Matsuba