By Troy Segal, ZAGAT.com staff editor
Restaurants are finding that sake goes with more than just sushi.
Chanterelle: Sake served here.
photo: Noah Kalina
On February 26th, Tocqueville – a bastion of French-American fare in NYC – is giving a wine-pairing dinner at the James Beard Foundation’s prestigious Beard House. Nothing unusual about that. What is unusual are the beverages to be paired with the meal, a compendium of Eastern and Western dishes. With the sashimi and soba noodles, guests will be drinking Rieslings. And with the deviled quail eggs, the monkfish foie gras and the beef sirloin, they’ll be drinking – sake.
Long a staple of sushi bars, sake is known to most Americans – if they know it at all – as a generic, hot high-octane drink you toss back in between bites of raw fish. But there are many different grades, flavors and styles of this ancient Japanese rice wine, and it’s the more premium varietals – served chilled like their grape counterparts, bearing musical names like Wandering Poet, Pride of the Village or Moon on the Water – that, increasingly, are coming to a wine list near you.
"Even six years ago, you’d be hard-pressed to find sake on any wine list,” says Paul Einbund, partner/sommelier at San Francisco’s Coi, a Californian-French eatery that offers seven varieties. “Now, at most places with major beverage programs, you’d be hard-pressed not to find it.”
Indeed, distributors say sake has seen the most consistent growth in their beverage portfolios, with U.S. imports increasing 12% a year over the last decade. Furthermore, “the quality of sake coming into the U.S. is much higher than it was before,” says Chris Pearce, owner of World Sake Imports in Honolulu. Pearce notes that “many chefs are big sake fans. They like the way it supports food. Milder, more subdued than wine, it doesn’t call as much attention to itself.”
The concept of “quality sake,” which represents about a quarter of the overall supply, is relatively new. Although sake is at least 1,000 years old, for much of its history it was a crude, commonplace brew (while it’s usually called “rice wine,” productionwise it’s really closer to rice beer – a combination of white rice, water, koji mold and yeast that’s fermented and then aged, usually for six months). The premium variety (see our sake glossary) is a post–World War II phenomenon: in an effort to combat declining sales – the result of competition from European spirits and vinos – small, regional producers began making more refined and complex sakes, similar to the way the scotch industry started pushing single malts, and Kentucky distilleries started producing smoother, aged bourbons for elite markets back in the 1980s.
At first, Japan kept these artisanal labels to itself, but with the globalization trends of the ’90s, marketing efforts broadened; around 1995, importing methods improved too, with the use of refrigerated containers – crucial for allowing these delicate brews to keep their flavor, notes Ataru Kobayashi, a New York City based importer of brands from the Niigata region. “So at last American consumers were able to taste real, premium sakes. Once they do, they’re hooked.”
Of course, the increased interest in sake also reflects the explosion of Japanese cuisine in general, and sushi in particular, in the U.S. (even that old venerable, Benihana, introduced a list of fine sakes as part of a chain-wide revamp in 2005). Pan-Asian and Asian fusion places helped boost its popularity as well, with restaurant groups such as Sushi Samba, Buddakan and Roy’s offering it in hip forms like flights or cocktails. While it’s still Asian eateries that carry the most extensive lists, a growing number of other establishments are pouring it on as well.
Chanterelle, the renowned French restaurant in Downtown Manhattan, has been hosting annual nine-course sake-tasting dinners since 1999, and regularly offers 10 to 18 sakes, depending on the season. At first, customers “are very leery” about trying them, says Roger Dagorn, Chanterelle’s wine director. But he encourages them to try one of his premium, small-producer labels by itself (as an apéritif or digestif) or to accompany a course on the tasting menu (he’s paired it with dishes such as scallop-and-foie-gras dumplings, lobster mousse and smoked duck with anise sauce) – and they’re “pleasantly surprised by the character and flavor.”
An interest in the flavors of Asian cuisine frequently leads many a Western chef to the rice brew. Kitchen Club, an intimate French-Japanese in Manhattan’s NoLita neighborhood, offers 25 varieties along with sake-based cocktails. “It just seemed logical, given the Japanese influence in my food,” says chef-owner Marja Samsom, whose specialties range from peppercorn-crusted filet mignon to pork and prune–stuffed fried dumplings. The growing interest in the drink, as customers “have gotten the confidence to order it,” also prompted her to open Chibi’s, a sake bar annex, a decade ago.
At Mark’s CityPlace in Palm Beach, a New American seafood specialist owned by chef-restaurateur Mark Militello, executive chef Roy Villacrusis recently increased the number of sakes offered. Villacrusis “brings a lot of Asian influences to the menu” – including sushi rolls, swordfish in a soy emulsion and pasta in a sake sauce – and finds that the rice wine “goes well with that.”
Given that most Americans first sample sake at a sushi bar, it’s logical that many of the places adopting the beverage are seafooders. Go Fish, chef-owner Cindy Pawlcyn’s new Napa Valley fish house, is already planning to expand its sake selection of 18 premium brews by the bottle and 11 by the glass – in the heart of California wine country, no less. Calling sake “an up-and-coming drink,” sous-chef/sommelier Stuart Morris estimates that almost one-third of the clientele orders it. With a surf ’n’ turf combo – like tuna and sweetbreads – he recommends a variety with mushroomy overtones. For fried fare, he suggests a brand with a fruity, round mouth feel. “Anything you can do with wine, you can do with sake,” Morris says, confessing that “braised short ribs might be a challenge.”
Bob Kanter, owner of Memphis Minnie’s BBQ Joint in the Lower Haight area of San Francisco, clearly doesn’t feel that way. He serves 10 varieties, with sweet names like Seventh Heaven and Chrysanthemum Meadow but with robust, woodsy flavors to stand up to the ’cue. Kanter says he was into sake before he got involved with BBQ: “I was amazed by the variety of tastes and flavors – just from rice!” Sake represents about 25% of his alcohol sales, and it’s growing. “At first I was drinking more than I was selling. Now it’s the opposite – and I’m not cutting back on my drinking.”
Carnivores can also sample sake at the Boa steakhouses in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, siblings to Katana, a West Hollywood robata grill/sushi bar with a strong list of labels. “When we saw how well the beef [and sake] matched at Katana, it was a no-brainer” to offer it at Boa says Tom Cardenas, vice-president of operations at Innovative Dining Group.
Even so, some sommeliers shrink from serving sake with anything “rich, reduced or stewed,” as Coi’s Paul Einbund puts it. “Crisp, clean, pure flavors – that’s when sake comes to mind. It’s a delicate beverage, one that shows better with elegant dishes, pinpointing ingredients like a laser beam.” He’s been putting sake on Coi’s wine-pairing menu (which roughly half the clientele orders) ever since the innovative Californian-French restaurant opened in San Francisco’s North Beach in April 2006. He also likes “using it to cleanse the palate” between courses. The taste for sake is “still growing – most guests order wine. Once a week, we sell a full bottle of sake,” he admits. “But at $160 a bottle, that’s pretty impressive.”
Charlie Trotter’s, a top-rated New American in Chicago, also includes sake among the wine-pairing options on its prix fixe menus (indeed, a client once asked that all 12 courses on the chef’s table menu be paired with a sake). “Chef Trotter’s cuisine has a strong minimalistic aesthetic – so you can see how sake, which is so subtle and pristine in character, would be in line with our culinary philosophy,” says sommelier Conrad Reddick. The restaurant carries some 25 seasonally changing sakes by the bottle (and a smaller number of choices by the glass). The selection gets an especially great response from those allergic to sulfites or other additives, since quality sake doesn’t contain any, Reddick notes.
Admittedly, sake is hardly elbowing Bordeaux and Burgundies off of Western wine lists. But more and more restaurateurs feel that it deserves a place at the table. “It’s just another part of good dining,” says Marco Moreira, chef-owner of Tocqueville. “You serve white wine, red wine – why not sake?”