SAN FRANCISCO—Declaring that his vaunted culinary insights most often come from the simple practice of combining diverse food cultures across the globe, avant-cuisine innovator and star restaurateur Victor Tobias announced Wednesday the opening of Teriyaki-San, his new restaurant specializing in cutting-edge Japanese-Japanese fusion cuisine. “It’s astounding what innovative, taste-forward, and yet truly simple dishes you can create when you take traditional Japanese food and interweave it with the classic textures of Japan. Think about the voluptuousness of sushi, but complemented by traditional Japanese flavorways such as earthy sesame seeds and the mineral heat of wasabi,” said Tobias, whose inspiration for the radical gustative intertwining came from a six-month stint learning the ins and outs of traditional Japanese cuisine at a sushi restaurant in Tokyo’s ultra-formal Akasaka district, followed a few months later by a trip to Tokyo’s frenetic Ginza district to refine his techniques at a traditional yakitori. “You’d think the flavors of these two distinct places would compete on the palate, but I was stunned to discover they harmonize perfectly on the tongue, almost as if meant for one another. We’re even experimenting with wild pairings of traditional Japanese foods, such as pork-belly ramen, with traditional Japanese saké. My feeling is, when you bring the food of different places together, you bring different people together.” Reservations at Teriyaki-San are currently booked through the next 14 months.
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