From 1 to 14 November 2008, the Okura’s Japanese restaurants will be presenting the annual culinary & cultural festival, during which a particular region in Japan is celebrated. This year’s chosen region is the prefecture of Saga, which is primarily renowned for its beautiful Arita porcelain from the 17th and 18th centuries.

Traditional Japanese Restaurant Yamazato and Teppanyaki Restaurant Sazanka will be serving a selection of dishes from Saga on Arita porcelain. The recipes will be from ‘Taisho-Ya’, a traditional ryokan hotel in Saga, which opened its doors in 1925. The hotel’s owner and chef will be coming over from Saga especially for the event. Executive Chef Taniguchi of Taisho-Ya in Saga will be preparing various specialties from the region together with Executive Chef Akira Oshima and Chefs de Cuisine Masanori Tomikawa and Masashi Nonaka. One of the specialities they will be serving is steamed Wagyu Shabu Shabu. Freshly harvested Saga rice will be flown in especially for the event. Arita porcelain is distinguished by blue designs on a white background, usually of flowers.

Arita Porcelain
Arita porcelain is distinguished by blue designs, usually of flowers, on a white background. This porcelain was largely manufactured for the Dutch market and brought to the Netherlands aboard ships of the Dutch East-India Company. Tragically, a lot of porcelain in Japan itself was destroyed in various earthquakes. In the Netherlands, however, Arita porcelain can still be admired in several places, for example at the Dutch National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden and at Capel & Capel Fine Art, which is specialized in Japanese porcelain from the 17th and 18th centuries. Especially for the Saga Festival, Capel & Capel Fine Art will be displaying a number of remarkable Arita objects in the Yamazato Restaurant. One of these is a dish of the Dutch East-India Company which is of museum quality. Both its size and the transparency of its decorations are unique. This dish was made three hundred years ago at the instigation of the Dutch East-India Company, making it a most unusual object. For more information about Arita Porcelain (in Dutch), please see www.museumvolkenkunde.nl and www.capel.nl.

Rare Arita dish from 1700 bearing the VOC logo of the Dutch East-India Company, from the collection of Capel & Capel Fine Art.