Kengo Kuma has made his long-awaited Singaporean debut with Suzuki – a sushi bar, no less – and it’s a beauty. Located in a prime spot right by the entrance of the newly minted Mondrian on the edge of Chinatown, the bijou 22-seater is Kuma’s first commercial project in city-state, the Tokyo-based architect having previously designed some private residences there.
Suzuki: a sushi bar by Kengo Kuma
First impressions count and Kuma sets the scene with a floor-to-ceiling glass façade clad in a bamboo collage that unfurls into a subliminal outline of waves.
Inside, he has placed a small garden of Gifu rocks and pebbles anchored by a sōzu, or fountain, and a classic shishi-odoshi water spigot. The idea, he says, was to have a sushi restaurant set within a garden. ‘I wanted to have an element of nature within a small space. Even in Ginza, where all the good sushi places are located, it’s difficult to realise this kind of rock garden because real estate is so expensive. So in a way, this restaurant in Singapore is more authentic than most in Ginza.’
If the top notes of Kuma’s moodboard are stone and water, then his middle notes are washi paper, which clads the restaurant’s cupboards and the scrim for the private dining room, and bamboo, the latter harvested and cut in Kyoto, and then installed by local artisans on site. The long stems are found not just in the window façade but also in the dramatic ceiling above the open kitchen, their blond striations creating an almost cascading effect by drawing the eye up and then down towards the internal garden.
The base note, and arguably the one that is designed to create the most lasting impression, is the L-shaped sushi counter, which is crafted from a solid piece of 150-year-old hinoki timber and lined with ‘NC’ chairs, which Kuma had designed for the café in Tokyo’s Nezu museum. Kuma was particularly insistent about using this wood, not least for its special connection to sushi bars. ‘It has a subtle perfume that creates a special harmony with fish. Most sushi bars, even those in Japan, don’t use hinoki, which I always find so disappointing.’
All of which is to say that a meal at Suzuki is a multi-sensorial experience, with head chef Suzuki Yuichiro gently teasing out seasonal flavours of seafood flown in four times a week from Japan – sea urchins from Hokkaido, tuna from Kyushu, and silver belt from Osaka – which he pairs with dashi stock made from freshly sliced bonito and water from Mount Fuji. Yes, really.
For Kuma – currently at work on the monumental Founders’ Memorial on Singapore’s Marina Bay – Suzuki is the synthesis of a life’s work in which simplicity is perfectly balanced with materiality. ‘I’m very pleased I was able to showcase Japanese culture within a very small space.’
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