Chisou Sottakuito is currently the top rated restaurant in Hiroshima with a Tabelog score of 4.52, helmed by Chef Hirano. It is located near Peace Boulevard and is about a 15 minute bus ride from Hiroshima station. I had a free night in Osaka and after reading u/BocaTaberu's review, decided to solo dine here and make the trip back and forth via Shinkansen (having a railpass made the decision easier).
My dinner in early March on a Friday night was 6pm and there was a split of 5 locals and 4 foreigners at the counter. Chef Hirano's speciality is dashi and almost every dish that was served tonight incorporated dashi in some sort of way. Chef Hirano explained that, depending on the dish, he would use either soft or hard spring water around Hiroshima with konbu and/or bonito of varying degrees of agedness to produce different dashi. Most of the ingredients used at my dinner were sourced from Hiroshima prefecture but most of the konbu and bonito he used were sourced from all over Japan. If you are like me and enjoy soups, you will love this Kappo-style meal.
My dinner consisted of the following:
Bamboo shoots with Wakame Seaweed in dashi.
Steamed Hiroshima Fugu Shirako with Nori – served in a thickened soup which went well with the creamy shirako.
Geoduck in vinegar sauce (served with liver) – first time having geoduck in Japan. Geoduck had a super springy texture.
Shiro Amadai with sticky rice cake in dashi (6-year aged bonito) – Chef explained and he used 6-year aged bonito for his dashi here and did not add salt or seasoning. You can really taste the difference compared to the dashi in the first dish. The dashi here had a deep heart warming umami and was one of the best sips of soup I had on this trip.
Sashimi course consisting of the following (served with Chef Hirano's own aged ponzu):
– Local Hagi with liver
– Hirame
– Engawa
– Aori Ika
– 5-day aged Kimedai (sourced from the legendary Sasue Maeda Fishshop in Shizouka)
– Sawara
All the sashimi were excellent. Fish were all locally sourced other than the Kimedai, which was also my favourite. A single bite of this aged Kimedai was heavenly (which is rare for me with sashimi).
Ojiya (Japanese congee) made from the Hagi and Hirame stock – during the sashimi course, this was being cooked in a giant claypot by Chef. The smells coming from this was so enticing and expectations were high. Taking a bite of this, all expectations were surpassed. Super rich, umami and seafoody. I had to ask for seconds.
Grilled Shirako over lettuce and served with karasumi (mullet roe) – Chef had extra shirako and decided to give another foreigner for his birthday and me! It was really nice getting special treatment from Chef and I had no idea why I got extra (I suspect he took pity on the only solo foreigner of the evening). This was a really good dish and the creamy shirako paired well with lettuce (that was blanched in dashi) and the salty roe, however, the proportions were definitely off because of the extra shirako 🙂
Beef Shabu Shabu (Takamori cow sourced from famous butcher Numamoto) – beef was silky, melt in your mouth. Usually for wagyu beef that is so fatty, you would not get much beef flavour but this bite had a really rich beefiness to it. The soup was also soul warming. This sent me to beef heaven.
Fukinoto and Burdock Root Donabe rice with bonito flakes. Served with a grilled Sawara. Great carby ending which I would have wanted seconds of but by this time the local couple next to me were full, so Chef helped to packed the remaining rice and dessert for them to takeaway, so no more seconds for me:(
Grilled black sesame rice cake. A great earthy dessert.
The meal ended with a tea ceremony with two types of green tea. Every dish was a hit and I left the meal highly satisfied. Meal took about 2.5 hours and I felt that the pacing was just right. Chef Hirano seems very intimidating at first but he turned out to be quite a friendly and goofy guy. The vibes of this place is quite relaxed, very much thanks to the excellent service and hospitality by Chef Hirano and the sommelier Rie Kimura. Chef Hirano does not speak much English so most of the explanations would be provided by Rie who speaks excellent English.
Overall, this was an excellent meal that I will glady come back to. If you are visting to Hiroshima, be sure to eat here since it is not too difficult to secure reservations if you plan ahead.
Score: 4.75 / 5
Cost Performance: 4 / 5 – I paid 27,000 yen before drinks. I think this meal has very very good value for the quality and amount of food you had.
Reservation difficulty: Easy to Medium. Booked this about two weeks in advance. Reservations can be booked via Tabelog. It is very simple to reserve and dates open up online about 2 months in advance.
by Single_Rutabaga_4776