Crafting Tradition with a Modern Touch at Ume no Hana

The number of Japanese restaurants abroad has more than tripled over the past decade, reaching nearly 200,000 in 2023. Alongside this growth, food exports hit a record high of JPY 1.45 trillion in 2023, highlighting the increasing global popularity of Japanese cuisine. Why do you think Japanese food is becoming more popular overseas, and what opportunities does that bring to the Japanese restaurant industry, both domestically and internationally?

There are many reasons to explain the growing popularity of Japanese food overseas. I believe the number one reason happened in 2013 when Japanese food was recognized as a UNESCO intangible heritage. It is an unprecedented recognition to talk about food rather than some historical places or monuments, for example. Of course, it goes beyond that. People are increasingly health conscious, focused on sustainability, and searching for authentic products, all of which are found in Japanese cuisine.

It’s not just one-sided. We cannot judge people’s attention towards Japanese cuisine as a single attitude because Japanese cuisine is so much more than just the food. It’s also about omotenashi, the spirit of Japanese hospitality, the image of high-quality and high-end products, and the healthiness of Japanese cuisine. Japanese history and cultural popularity also attract interest from foreigners to Japanese cuisine. In other words, the fame of Japanese cuisine internationally is driven by its health benefits, the cultural influences, and the visual appeal of its dishes and the tableware used in the restaurants.

Variation, especially seasonal variation, is another thing that contributes because it’s not just the same raw ingredients that are repeatedly used. There is a sort of rotation of ingredients throughout the season and the whole year. We try to pick the best ingredients and introduce them to a very demanding customer base.

Appreciation of high-quality standards is also something that has to be considered when we talk about expansion overseas. I think part of your question relates to what else Japanese cuisine companies can do abroad and how they can introduce the food to a wider customer base. We have this concept behind our company’s expansion overseas. For example, we have a restaurant in Bangkok, Thailand. The story is that some people came to Japan, and they tried to go to an Ume no Hana restaurant in Japan and then wanted to take that experience back to Thailand, including the quality. Therefore, a unified, high standard of quality has to be maintained when expanding a business like ours overseas.

Rivalry and competitiveness amongst washoku restaurants are not new for Japanese companies and many have expanded their business to Thailand already. That’s just one example, but there are many other countries where Japanese cuisine has been introduced. You always have to be innovative and come up with new ideas in any country you want to penetrate to satisfy the customers.

There have been a series of challenges for the restaurant industry. Of course, COVID was one of those challenges. You opened a Ume no Hana in Beverly Hills, California, though it’s at least temporarily closed. As we sit here today, do you see new opportunities to expand your overseas business beyond Thailand?

We currently have two stores in Thailand, and it’s true that it didn’t go well in America. As for the next steps for us, on October 29, we will go to Vietnam to do market research. We also have an opportunity in the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia so we will most likely expand there.

According to the Japan National Tourism Organization, from March to May this year, the number of inbound tourists surpassed three million each month, marking a significant rise compared to previous years. The country is expected to reach a record high of 35 million international visitors this year, further solidifying the country’s international appeal. You have restaurants in hotspot tourist locations such as Ginza, Fukuoka, and Osaka. What role does inbound tourism play in your business model, and what are you doing to attract foreign customers?

Foreign tourists are naturally attracted to Japanese cuisine and are important to our business. For example, they represent about 60% of the customers in the Ginza restaurant. Of course, for most of our locations, there are more Japanese than foreign customers, but we see a lot of Western customers, especially from America and European countries. We also see a lot of customers from Southeast Asia and South Korea, so we do have a good level of interest from the foreign visitors.

Your flagship restaurant, the yuba and tofu Plum Blossom shop, is located all throughout Japan. This restaurant showcases innovative Japanese kaiseki cuisine by creatively combining seasonal ingredients. What is unique about these restaurants, and how do they maintain traditional Japanese culture while adapting to contemporary, modern tastes?

The yuba and tofu Plum Blossom shops are definitely the flagship kaiseki cuisine that we introduced, and that’s a blend between the historical traditional elements in cuisine with contemporary culinary practices, so it’s a combination of both the old and the new. I think it’s a good foundation for everything that we do here. One distinguishing point that I would point out is that yuba and tofu are difficult to make as main dishes. Usually, people who want to fill their stomachs will go to a meat or fish restaurant to have a large meal. In contrast, our customers do not necessarily come to get full because it’s more like a side dish rather than a main dish. People are coming for the experience. Hospitality (omotenashi), healt, extraordinary that’s what we are all about. We try to provide a welcoming experience, from the opening of the doors of the restaurant to the very last portion of the meal. Everything they experience in the restaurant should become a good memory, so that’s our main feature.

When you’re dining in the restaurant, it’s a holistic experience, and we try to create a traditional Japanese atmosphere that includes different elements of Japanese culture and nature, with no chefs standing and cooking the meal in front of you. This is also a reflection of how we treat our customers as if they are in a family-based environment. All of that attracts a lot of interest from our customers to have this experience. Additionally, all seasonal dishes are prepared carefully with the freshest ingredients for that season. It even extends to our takeaway customers.

To follow up on that, do you mind explaining what kaiseki cuisine is, since I think it is still a pretty foreign idea for many of our readers?

If you were to translate it directly, I would say it is a multi-course meal of traditional Japanese cuisine. I would further say it is a perfect balance for the multi-course meal because the goal is not to overeat. Something small is enough to get a taste of various delicious foods. We have courses that are separated by different preparation methods.

It’s a bit difficult to convey and translate the image because you judiciously select the best ingredients possible to achieve a balanced kaiseki course. So, kaiseki simply means a multi-course meal, but the larger meaning includes experience of “omotenashi”, “Japanese culture”, “the change of the seasons” etc while having a totally satisfying experience in the restaurant. It sounds simple, but it is very difficult for others to copy what we do because it’s a traditional blend of many things, from the seasonal ingredients to the manner of preparation to the presentation. Even being Japanese, it’s a bit difficult for me to explain clearly, but we put a special emphasis on the historical aspect of the origin of this type of meal.

One of the core aspects of your business is your commitment to using high-quality ingredients in your restaurants. You ensure that your business partners provide raw material specifications and make it a priority to offer clear nutritional information to customers. How does your commitment to high-quality ingredients enhance your commitment to hospitality, and how do your seasonal changes influence the ingredients you use in the dishes you offer throughout the year?

It’s a very good question to ask because it is important to preserve the customers’ interest throughout the whole year and that is very difficult with seasonal changes. For example, a particular dish that is popular with customers may be difficult to offer when the next season arrives. In fact, continuously satisfying the customer is probably the most difficult part of our business because they may really like a seasonal offering and want to continue that experience for the whole year, but obviously, we cannot do that. What we do is we try to change, but not drastically change. We also try to keep some continuity with side dishes while we improvise the main dishes seasonally.

Do you have a favorite season for the meals you offer?

The autumn season is very nice because it features “Matsutake” mushrooms, so that’s probably my favorite. My second favorite is “fugu”, or puffer fish, which is available in winter. Of course, raw fugu is famous, but I recommend it in a hotpot or as a deep fried karaage.

An expansion of the Yuba and Tofu Plum Blossom shop is the China Plum Blossom Shop, which is a creative restaurant offering authentic Chinese food and other plum blossom products. The recommended usage of these restaurants in Kyushu is for celebrations, memorials, and family gatherings. How do you leverage your experience serving traditional Japanese cuisine into serving Chinese cuisine, and what are some of your strengths in offering Chinese cuisine?

The expansion into serving Chinese food is something that we did naturally. We try not to say that our Chinese restaurant is an authentic Chinese restaurant because it’s not. The type of food that we serve there is similar to the Chinese food experience that you may find in a traditional Chinese restaurant, but we try to bring it to the next level and introduce a blend of Japanese washoku and culture. For example, the dashi, or soup stock, is a core foundation for the food that’s offered, not only in our Japanese kaiseki restaurants but also in Chinese food as well. In Japanese dishes, the dashi is usually based on seaweed and “katsuobushi” (dried, smoked bonito flakes) etc. Obviously, Chinese food dashi is based on different ingredients. Considering that, you could describe it as a Japanese-style Chinese restaurant which we try to make authentic while also preserving our traditional ways of making food.

In addition to operating restaurants, you also sell plum blossom products both in-store and online. Products range from less expensive individual items to pricier sets. How does offering your products to the consumer market help you stay connected to your customer base outside your restaurants, and how does this area of your business help complement your restaurant operations?

To answer that question, it would be helpful to explain the structure of our company. In the early days, it was a very simple, flat company structure, but currently it’s a group company.

Catering has been, and still is the main business. Ume no Hana and its related brands are based on that. Sushihan and Teraken are two companies that we acquired to complement our group and are now part of our portfolio. Sankyo Ume no Hana was added when we approached a cattle breeding company to became part of our group. They supply high quality ingredients to us. We also have a takeout business, which is sort of a necessity these days for restaurants. Of course, we have the online operations that you just mentioned, and we already talked about our two stores in Thailand and our plans for further overseas expansion. We also have an asset management business because we have a lot of buildings and real estate. Last but not least, we have an international staffing business, which came about because of the shrinking domestic market and the lack of human resources that we need to keep running our restaurants.

Do you sell your products online internationally, or is this purely a domestic business?

We recently started to sell in South Korea, but mostly it is just a domestic business. On the other hand, it does combine with our need to export because some ingredients and products can only be found in Japan. That’s especially true for our Thailand locations. For example, tofu, yuba, daikon-mochi, and gluten mochi are things we have to send to Bangkok because they cannot find or make those ingredients locally.

The human resources aspect of your business is interesting. As you mentioned, kaiseki is a very traditional chef’s craft. How are you ensuring the longevity of that craftsmanship and those chefs? Are there enough young Japanese people who are interested in this career or are you actively seeking foreign trainees that you could teach this culinary skill?

Ume no Hana is a unique restaurant that doesn’t have a master chef in each restaurant. There are some cases where we have to have craftsmen skilled in handling particular ingredients or techniques, but mostly, we use part-time employees because most things rely on the central kitchen. That central kitchen prepares the courses for the restaurants to finish cooking with simple techniques onsite. Even in Thailand, there are no Japanese people working in the kitchen except the restaurant manager. Somebody comes to inspect occasionally but not to work regularly. The kitchen staff just cook following the recipe.  Therefore, if we need to attract some foreign labor, they will be capable of doing the work without the extensive training needed.

On the other hand, Teraken, which is a seafood izakaya restaurant that’s part of our group holdings, several outlets are run by experienced Vietnamese staff. In fact, a performance involving cutting and presentation “Maguro (Tuna) Kaitai Show” which takes place in those restaurants, is also done by trained Vietnamese staff.

Of course, you have partnerships with a variety of suppliers to support your restaurants. Are you interested in expanding your partnership network, either domestically or overseas, to help support your international expansion?

The ingredients that we rely on for tofu preparation in Japan are provided on an OEM basis, so that is an example of our relying on a partner. Obviously, it is very important for us to maintain these relationships with domestic companies. We run the business overseas by exporting products that cannot be found locally, so we would like to continuously create and maintain good relationships with such kinds of companies domestically. Internationally, perhaps Canada would be a good source for a partner, since it is famous for the soy beans that can make good tofu or yuba products. Unfortunately, we cannot find such a partner in Thailand at the moment.

In Japan, we are talking about the full cycle of sustainability because we buy raw ingredients made in factories, and it’s important that the leftovers or byproducts from that manufacturing process are not being wasted. They can be reused in a variety of ways to create a full circle in Japan. It remains to be seen if we can replicate that circle in other countries, but we can definitely say that we are focused on that here in Japan.

If we were to return on the last day of your presidency to interview you again, what is your personal goal or ambition that you would like to have achieved by then?

Further expansion overseas is one of my goals. I would like to see the company go beyond the restaurants we have in Thailand now. Southeast Asian countries would be the next target. North America would be nice, but that is a long-term dream yet to come.

Hospitality is something that we talked about a lot today, and Japan as a country is famous for hospitality, so we would like to continue carrying on that Japanese hospitality with every experience that somebody has in our restaurants. Ume no Hana aims to create a welcoming and inclusive extraordinary environment for all our guests, and we would like to help educate non-Japanese about the many good foods Japan has to offer beyond the more famous ones known today. Finally, I would like all of my employees and customers to be happy.

Thank you very much.