Spanish dining aca 1° is located close to Karasuma Oike in Kyoto. It is a small Spanish restaurant focused around counter seating. The restaurant’s modern Spanish cuisine, which takes classic Spanish dishes and infuses them with the imaginative ideas of the chef, has earnt aca 1° a star in the 2017 Michelin Guide.
Chef Tetsuo Azuma says that the list of dishes he’d like his customers to try is “endless”, and he let us see how he prepares the paella that is the restaurant’s specialty, as well as squid ink croquettes, another popular item from the menu, whilst discussing his thoughts about cooking, and his techniques.
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Q: What kind of ingredients are suitable for putting into a paella?
Chef Azuma:
The things that I choose are fragrant and meaty, and I take into account the quality of the meat, the size, and whether or not it’s something that will suit the Japanese palate. Crustaceans suit paella very well, so I use them all year round.
Depending on the season, I will use things like snow crab, female snow crab from Kyoto, horsehair crab, and blue crab.
I make around 12-13 kinds of paella throughout the year, featuring things like eel, rosy seabass, conger eel, and Pacific saury.
Chef Azuma:
This dish is based on one eaten in Basque country: squid stewed in ink. I thought it would be boring to serve it in that way, so I hit upon the idea of making croquettes.
So, while it’s based on traditional Spanish cuisine, it’s served in a way that is unique to this restaurant.
I serve these squid ink croquettes at the beginning of spring, and they’re a very popular item, attracting many repeat customers!
The squid stewed in ink is made by sauteing onions, to which you add tomatoes, bay leaves and squid ink, before stewing the squid.
Access
2F Shiratori Building 55 Masuya-cho, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto
6 minutes from Subway Karasuma-Oike station
Tel
075-223-3002
Hours
12:00-13:00 / 18:00-21:00 Last entry
Reservations required
Closed
Sundays