Hakuba

Rice temperature at the counter

The rice lands warm, the fish cut to its grain, as Takuya Watanabe, Chef at Hakuba in Paris, sets the first rhythm of the omakase. His station sits inside Cheval Blanc Paris, in the 1st arrondissement, but the method reaches back to Sapporo, where he trained in a traditional kaiseki restaurant. That discipline gives the room its order: restraint before gesture, sequence before flourish, nothing placed without a reason.

Watanabe has held the Hakuba post since 2024, carrying into the restaurant the same exact language he uses at Jin Paris and AMAMOTO. At Hakuba, the title is Head Chef, and the menu gives him a narrow, exact frame. The Yume menu functions as the house omakase, with supplements such as sea urchin temaki and truffle, and caviar temaki standing as the named signature. His own line for the work is spare: “Nothing is superfluous. Everything is done in pursuit of the perfect balance of flavours.” The sentence reads like a station note. Control first, then feeling.

Omakase shaped by kaiseki and sauce

Hakuba’s program joins kaiseki-sushi structure with French technique, not as decoration but as a working method. The progression moves through raw and cooked fish, soy, rice, broths, dashi, and seafood treated with Japanese discipline and French finishing. The house holds 2 Michelin stars, and the number matters only because the counter itself keeps the pressure visible. Each course has to answer the one before it.

The menu has named points of return: signature temaki, langoustine, otoro, and unagi. The kitchen uses maturation, kombu marinade, rice temperature, cut, and texture as active tools. French and Atlantic fish meet Japanese handling; sake and wine carry the beverage side rather than sitting apart from the meal. The format is formal, but the work is bench-side in spirit. Fish, rice, hand, pass. Watanabe’s kaiseki training shows in the way the meal refuses excess while still allowing caviar, truffle, and fatty tuna to appear without noise.

Dark wood and a quiet pass

The room keeps its voice low. Dim light falls across sober dark woods, with a Japanese forest suggested rather than staged, and the counter pulls attention toward the hands instead of the room. Hakuba is intimate by design; the dining format asks the guest to watch the sequence, not drift through a menu. The atmosphere is serene, formal, and close to silent, which suits a cuisine built on dosage and timing.

At the pass, the performance is culinary rather than theatrical. A piece of otoro can carry the weight of the room if the rice is right. A temaki can close the distance between French luxury and Japanese restraint without announcing the crossing. At Hakuba, the method already contains the cut, the broth, the grain of rice, the caviar temaki.