Artist’s Palate: Daniel Arsham’s cold soba

In 1996, when Wallpaper* was born, a teenage Daniel Arsham was, he recalls, busy ‘listening to hip hop and taking a lot of photos on a Pentax K1000’. Two decades on, his witty experiments with structures encompass architecture, art and performance spaces. He is co-founder of the art/architecture studio Snarkitecture, while his works in sculpture and in set design for leading contemporary dancers have been shown around the world. ‘I’ve exhibited and worked in Japan for years,’ he says. ‘My wife is half Japanese. It’s my favourite place on earth. One of my favourite dishes from Japan is cold soba. The summers there can be quite hot and this dish is served cold. I like to make it even colder.’ After rinsing cooked soba noodles in cold water and placing them in the freezer, he serves them in a bamboo basket above a bowl of dry ice in hot water so the fog from the ice envelopes them. He garnishes his noodles with green onions, shiso leaves and nori, and dips them in mentsuyu sauce.

Ingredients
Soba noodles
Bamboo basket, for serving
Dry ice, for serving
Green onion
Shiso leaves
Nori
Mentsuyu sauce

Method
Cook noodles in boiling water and strain as instructed. Rinse in cold water to cool, and place in freezer to further chill. Garnish with chopped green onions, shiso leaves and nori, and serve with mentsuyu sauce for dipping. For added drama, serve in a bamboo basked above a bowl of dry ice in hot water.

As originally featured in the October 2016 issue of Wallpaper* (W*211)