When two-starred Michelin chef Lionel Beccat reminisces about Tsukiji, the world’s biggest fish market in Tokyo, it is not the ocean’s bounty that stirs memories but the fishmongers themselves. "The story of Tsukiji is quite simply a story about human relationships," Beccat tells AFP as
When two-starred Michelin chef Lionel Beccat reminisces about Tsukiji, the world’s biggest fish market in Tokyo, it is not the ocean’s bounty that stirs memories but the fishmongers themselves.
“The story of Tsukiji is quite simply a story about human relationships,” Beccat tells AFP as he browses through the market at the crack of dawn in search of prawns and fish for his lunchtime service.
Beccat, 42, is executive chef at Esquisse, a restaurant in the Japanese capital’s ultra-chic Ginza district, and he has been making the short journey to the market for the past 12 years.
But all that will come to an end on Saturday when Tsukiji closes after 83 years, moving to a purpose-built site at Toyosu, several kilometers east.
Now a veteran of the market, he says it took several years to establish a trusted relationship with the merchants of Tsukiji.
“I quickly had to get used to the idea that I knew nothing about fish,” said Beccat, even though he comes from the French fishing port of Marseille.
At Tsukiji, “it is the fishmongers who choose their clients. Not the other way around,” he said, adding that even the top chefs show deference to the vendors and their knowledge.
