Modern French Meets Aomori Tradition: A Hands-on Chef Experience Exploring Local Flavors

The World of ReLabo and En: Wellness and Aomori French Gastronomy

Aomori French Gastronomy En is based within Hotel ReLabo, a wellness-oriented hotel in prefectural capital Aomori City. The restaurant’s concept is “Aomori, and yet not,” and its mission is to reimagine local ingredients through French techniques and advanced culinary science. By harnessing this unique confluence, it seeks to present Aomori to visitors from all over the world in a new light.

Rather than simply serving local dishes in their most traditional or conventional forms, the restaurant’s chef seeks to distill Aomori’s ingredients down to their purest essence and heighten it. By working closely with regional producers and applying modern ultra-high-tech methods, the absolute best of these familiar local flavors are deepened and refined into something unexpected and inspired.

En’s interior matches its approach to food, blending chic modernity with soothing comfort. Lunch service is not normally offered here, making this Wabunka-exclusive lunch plan a rare opportunity to enjoy the space in complete privacy.

Aomori Cuisine: Ripe with Northern Seasonality

The experience begins with an introduction to the local climate and geography from En’s head chef Masanori Kawaguchi. Aomori City gets an abundance of snowfall, and plentiful meltwater from the nearby Hakkoda Mountains nourishes the surrounding environment, from fields and fruit orchards to lakes and rivers. This wintry, moisture-rich environment has shaped the region’s food culture for centuries.

Kawaguchi explains about the region’s distinctive ingredients – from its famous apples and mountain vegetables such as turnips, nagaimo yams, and burdock root, to the fruit of its surrounding seas: large tuna and scallops – as well as the role of seasonality in their use. Traditional hot soup dishes like kenoshiru, and jappajiru, as well as marinated cod roe kowae reflect the traditional wisdom of preservation and seasonality.

The chef explains how these local traditions have informed and inspired his modern creations. Rather than replicating local cuisine, he extracts its essence — climate, fermentation, resourcefulness — and translates it into contemporary gastronomy.

Gastrovac: A Culinary Revolution

Chef Kawaguchi, inspired to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps as a Western-style chef, has trained in the culinary arts in Aomori, Tokyo, and France. His time in France strengthened his belief in regional pride and the importance of expressing local terroir through cuisine.

At the heart of the experience he has crafted here is the Gastrovac, a vacuum cooking device that uses pressure differentials in a low-oxygen environment rather than high heat. By lowering ambient pressure, the Gastrovac allows ingredients to release air and absorb infused liquid more effectively, preserving nutrients and intensifying flavor.

In a rare chef-guided kitchen tour, guests can observe the process up close: watching as the pressure differential causes bubbles to rise as the cells of the ingredients open up and release their air and moisture to later be replaced by flavor-infused broth of their own essence. In autumn, participants can experience infusing Aomori apples, while in other seasons, turnips may be used instead. Beyond simple abstract explanations, Chef Kawaguchi offers a comparative taste test to demonstrate how the Gastrovac improved the aroma, texture, and depth of flavor – a vivid illustration of how advanced preparation methods can reveal hidden dimensions within a familiar ingredient.

Chef Kawaguchi’s Culinary Creations: Elevating Local Dishes to the Level of Fine Gastronomy

Building on Aomori’s seafood heritage, Kawaguchi demonstrates his modern dishes inspired by local food culture. One example is his herb-cured tuna, reinventing the region’s abundant seafood through refined French-trained Japanese sensibilities and illustrating how local tradition can be elevated without losing its identity.

Participants can observe preparation techniques, seasoning balance, and plating, before taking home the recipe to this impressive dish so they can try their hand at recreating the dish in their own kitchens. It’s a perfect opportunity to infuse some professional gastronomy into your own home cooking.

A Lunch Course Steeped in the Terroir and Climate of Aomori

With the restaurant all to themselves, Wabunka guests can then sit down to a private course lunch exploring a progression of themes: “Cycle and Sustainability,” “Discovery and Depth,” “Purity and Pursuit,” “Clime and Climate,” “Country and Chemistry,” and finally “Venture and Revolution.”

Flatfish from offshore Imabetsu in Mutsu Bay is elevated with Gastrovac technology and an apple-tomato infusion. Three varieties of Aomori apples highlight the prefecture’s most iconic fruit. Japanese huchen (Sakhalin taimen) raised on sake lees, from Ajigasawa near Shirakami-Sanchi, is served with cervelle de canut, a fine herb- and spice-infused French spread of fromage blanc cheese. Sakura snowcrab from Fukaura is accompanied by cauliflower mousse, vegetable gelée, salt-baked beetroot, and caviar cream.

A potage of Aomori-grown turnips is finished with turnip-leaf oil. En’s signature “13 Bites of Nature” plate represents Aomori with thirteen bites of elemental local goodness. Kuraishi beef from Gonohe Town is prepared with precise temperature control – 45°C low-temperature cooking followed by 160°C at 60% humidity, brought to a core temperature of 52°C before being finished on a charcoal plate. It is served with Aomori kale and a fond de veau fermented sauce of Hakkoda-harvested blueberry. The menu concludes with reconstructed strawberry and Burgundy wine.

A Special Experience of Aomori’s Famed Apple Culture (Additional Option)

Before your gastronomy experience at Aomori French Gastronomy En, guests may choose to visit Aomori Kanko Apple Orchard for a deeper understanding of the ingredient that has come to symbolize the prefecture. More than a simple harvest activity, this optional program explores why Aomori became Japan’s leading apple-producing region through the lens of climate, history, and cultivation philosophy.

From August 1 to November 15, guests explore the orchard and join seasonal harvesting, learning about fruit thinning, sugar concentration, protective bagging, snow-country storage, varietal history, and Tsugaru’s unique climate and soil. From mid-November to the end of April, the focus shifts to yukimuro apples stored beneath snow, with a comparative tasting highlighting how time and environment shape flavor.

After the orchard visit, guests are transferred by private car to Aomori French Gastronomy En, experiencing the land firsthand before savoring its refined culinary expression.

Discovering Another Side of Aomori through Gastronomy

So much more than just a meal, this experience is an intellectual and sensory journey into Aomori’s climate, culture, and ongoing innovation. By combining tradition with science, Aomori French Gastronomy En reveals new possibilities hidden within familiar traditions. Guests leave not only satisfied, but with a deeper understanding of how terroir, technology, and creativity intersect – a true expression of “Aomori, and yet not.”