Kajitsu Takes Two

[ed lefkowicz for the nytimes] chilled eggplant at kajitsuMasato Nishihara worked at Kajitsu's East Village location for three years. He moved on somewhat recently, Ryota Ueshima took his place, and the restaurant relocated to Murray Hill. The vegetarian multicourse tradition (called kaiseki) remains, it just happens in a softer, more inviting setting. "The new place shimmers," Pete Wells writes in his review of Kajitsu this week.

Kajitsu is structured around shojin ryori, a seasonally-driven form of cooking that traces back to 13th Century Buddhist monks. Because of the Zen Buddhist belief that it is wrong to kill animals, fish included, shojin ryori is a completely vegetarian form of cooking. That aside, the ideals that drive shojin ryori are not unlike those found in the New Nordic movement, one that's given us restaurants like Aska, Acme, and Atera. At the root of each culinary practice is a strict adherence to local, seasonal ingredients.

"To express wonder that Kajitsu’s chef, Ryota Ueshima, can fashion a delicious multicourse meal out of nothing but plants and mushrooms," writes Wells, "is like being astonished when a French baker makes dessert from flour, butter, sugar and eggs."

"You could design a calendar simply by eating at Kajitsu every four weeks and taking pictures," the critic writes, then reveals the fact that Ueshima changes the menu on the first of every month. "Anticipating the season and showing off local ingredients are both old kaiseki traditions," he continues, "but I found that the things I enjoyed least at Kajitsu were Western vegetables that had not come into their own yet." These few missteps aside, Wells enjoys his meals at Kajitsu and awards the restaurant two stars. [NYTimes]