Shinwazen, Freischützgasse, Zurich

Would you believe that ? The NZZ beat me to a scoop. Now I dearly love the paper but their focus tends to be more on lengthy reflections than current affairs. Upon noticing I immediately dispatched to the newly opened Shinwazen. It’s a sleek, contemporary japanese restaurant. It’s a husband and wife operated establishment and focuses on showcasing sake paired with modern, japanese dishes. You can sense, that this is my type of place.

A large communal table is available to the diners, maybe not the perfect place for a first date if it’s crowded. Hence I chose wisely in having a world-class footballer join me in dining. The menu has a few dishes and two small menus to choose from. Both menus can either be paired with wine or sake. The couple seems very knowledgeable and if you’re interested they’ll tell you all you want about sake, from flavor profiles to manufacturing.

As an amuse some homemade, fresh tofu is served and to contrast topped with some ginger and shiso leaves. This way even I like tofu! Clean, simple flavors, the slight bitterness playing off the sweet and sharp ginger and everything wrapped in a almost muting blanket of the tofu. The next plate is almost like a small showcase, since it’s plated with five different one bite tibits. One of the most surprising was a small piece of eggplant sushi, elegant and really showcasing eggplant. For the more conservative eater, the pork belly was cooked for ages and just melted in our mouths.

As a main course they had a special grilled Kirschlachs (cherry salmon) served whole. I’ve never had fish skin which tasted so good. We where fortunate to get some real silverware to dissect the fish, because using just chopsticks would have been a bit of a mess. The starch (served after the fish) was a crispy rice ball served with some dashi and topped with algae and shiso leaves. Again nothing to complain, all nicely balanced. Dessert was a nice finish, somewhat more complex than the main course and showing off Yuzu in different ways.

For every course we got a different type of sake plus an explanation what they were about. Kind of like what a sommelier would do. I loved the place, it’s modern japanese food, done well, in nice surroundings. It’s not the cheapest place, but then again real quality is not for free. Keep in mind that splurging on a “japanese” sushi place (the Seefeld kind) won’t be much cheaper and it’s not on par with the insights into japanese cuisine you get at Shinwazen.