「これでいいや」で仕事を終わらせていないか？世界一の美食家に学ぶ、一流の思考と技術【浜田岳文×GO三浦】

Food Has Three Layers — The Difference Between 'Tasty' and 'Delicious'

Hamada divides food into three distinct layers. The first is eating for nutrition. The second is going out because something tastes good — 'umai.' The third is what he means by 'oishii.'

'Oishii' is not limited to physiological pleasure. It is an experience that takes in the chef's technique, their thinking, and the stories of the producers behind the plate. Hamada compares it to the tea ceremony: the tea ceremony is not about drinking good tea; it is a cultural experience in its entirety. That total experience is gastronomy — the domain where food and culture meet. The episode also offers a clear etymology: 'gastronomy' from gastro (stomach) + nomy (rules, laws).

From a Terrible Dormitory Cafeteria to a Three-Star Table in Paris

Hamada's interest in food did not begin with a love of fine dining. As a first-year student at an American university, he was required to live in a dormitory whose cafeteria served food at what he called a 'survival-threatening level.' Juice-free green gelatin appeared at the buffet four days running, and when no one touched it, it came back on the fourth day topped with whipped cream. He started eating out simply to survive, and that was how 'umai' first entered his life.

The turning point came when he finished his course credits six months early and moved to Paris at 21–22. He visited Pierre Gagnaire's restaurant in the chef's very first year holding two Michelin stars and encountered a dish that was unusual at the time: meat combined with seafood. 'If you only wanted something tasty, there would be no reason to use a combination that creates resistance,' he recalled thinking. That question — *why do this?* — was the moment 'oishii' became his obsession.

Three Criteria for Evaluating World-Class Cuisine

Hamada does not evaluate food through personal preference. 'I like this' or 'I don't like this' ends a conversation; 'this is good' or 'this is not good' opens one, because it demands an explanation. His three criteria follow from that discipline.

The first is **depth of thinking**. He cites Hoshino (星野), a celebrated Japanese restaurant in Shinbashi, as an example: its chefs rigorously re-examine even the received wisdom that sashimi must be paired with soy sauce and wasabi. In 99 of 100 tests, the predecessors turn out to be right — but the one exception yields a discovery, and the 99 failures become the evidence that lets you explain, in your own words, why the convention exists.

The second is **craftsmanship** — the manual skill to translate thinking into a finished dish. He points to Notry (ノートリー), a young chef's restaurant deep in a forest in a small village in Yamanashi. At a moment when the trend is toward fewer components per plate, this chef combines many local ingredients into complex dishes and pulls them together flawlessly. 'This chef is simply skilled' is all Hamada can say — and when other professional cooks reach for the same words unprompted, that confirms it.

The third is **the power to tell the story**. Even an exceptional restaurant will not spread by word of mouth if no one can describe it in a single sentence. Hamada notes that a restaurant itself needs to equip its guests with that one-liner — something as clear as 'the Italian place that excels at rolled preparations.'

Criticism Is Creation — A Philosophy of Expression

For chefs and craftspeople who have no desire to broadcast their own work, Hamada says a structure in which fans do the talking on their behalf is perfectly sufficient. The precondition, though, is that ordinary guests can explain the appeal in plain language — which loops back to the single-sentence test.

Hamada also offered a candid self-analysis. He has been unable to draw or make things since childhood and considers himself to have zero creative talent. Yet when he listens to music, he has always found himself analysing chord progressions rather than simply feeling the melody. His gift, he concluded, is not making but receiving — and seeing structure. Host GO Miura noted that 'creating a new way of seeing a work is itself a creative act,' and Hamada agreed with his observation that advertising is closer to criticism than to creation.

Maebashi International Arts Festival: 'Food as Art?'

The project Hamada is most focused on right now is in Maebashi, Gunma Prefecture. He is producing the gastronomy programme for the Maebashi International Arts Festival, which runs from late September to the end of December, under the theme 'Food as Art?' — an empirical inquiry into whether food can enter the realm of art.

The headline event is the visit of the chef from Alchemist, a Copenhagen restaurant. Alchemist incorporates edible plastic-like elements into its dishes to raise awareness of ocean plastic pollution. Guests are told about the issue before they eat something that looks like plastic, which triggers hesitation and discomfort — deliberately so, because 'negative experiences leave a stronger memory.' The food itself, Hamada notes, is genuinely delicious once you eat it. During the Japan visit, the chef will give both a talk and a cooking demonstration.