You can’t book for Japan’s best restaurants, but this Aussie can get you in

Yukitaka Yamaguchi is the most powerful tuna merchant in Tokyo. That makes him the most powerful tuna merchant in Japan; probably the most powerful in the world.

You want the best tuna for your sushi restaurant? Tuna that is marbled like A5 wagyu beef, tuna that is almost literally worth its weight in gold?

No tourists allowed: Tokyo’s Toyosu Market is for hospitality workers.Credit: iStock

Then you have to come to Yamaguchi. You have to know Yamaguchi. If you don’t have a close personal relationship with this man, if he hasn’t visited your restaurant and tried your rice and decided you are worthy of his product, then he will not sell to you, and you are not getting the best tuna.

It’s that simple.

Plan Japan founder and director Rachel Lang has been building relationships with top chefs for more than 20 years.Credit: Nikki To

Chefs spend years developing a relationship with Yamaguchi. They hang around Tokyo’s sprawling Toyosu fish market in the hopes of catching his attention, of breaking the ice and maybe someday – someday – being allowed to purchase his fish.

And so why, you have to ask, is Yamaguchi now standing before us, a bunch of tourists, having a casual chat? Why are we even here, deep in the belly of Toyosu, surrounded by endless Styrofoam boxes of the most amazing seafood you have ever seen? Fish, squid, octopus, clams, oysters, giant crabs, abalone, sacs of roe, whole livers... these delicacies are laid out like some gargantuan buffet.

Tourists aren’t allowed here. This floor is strictly for those in the business, chefs and wholesalers and other dealers. You can’t get in to wander and gawk in the way you could at Tokyo’s old, chaotic Tsukiji market.

And yet here is Yamaguchi, the guy who pays millions of dollars for one fish, posing for selfies with us next to a tree-trunk-sized tuna.

The reason we’re allowed here, why we’re getting this attention, is two of the people in our group. One is Ryujiro Nakamura, chef and owner of Sushi Ryujiro, a Michelin-starred eatery deemed worthy of Yamaguchi’s tuna. Nakamura knows Yamaguchi because he has built a relationship with him over many years. This is how Japan works.

The other person in our group is Rachel Lang, founder and director of high-end tour company Plan Japan. Lang has access to Toyosu, and Yamaguchi, because she knows Nakamura, because she has built a relationship with him over many years. This is how Japan works.

It may not seem like it, but this visit to Toyosu, standing here in a puddle of fish juice, surrounded by Styrofoam boxes and busy men in overalls, is the absolute pinnacle of luxury in Japan.

You can stay in all the fancy hotels you want here. You can get limousine transfers, you can be pampered at the finest spas, you can shop at designer boutiques. If you have enough money you can do all of those things, no questions asked.

But if you don’t know the right people, you can’t do this. You can’t visit Toyosu and chat to Yamaguchi, not for any amount of cash. You can’t eat at Sushi Ryujiro or other famous restaurants such as Sushi Saito or Amamoto. You can’t meet the most famous wagyu dealer in the country and have him cook for you.

The best culinary experiences in Japan, the highest echelons of gastronomy, are reserved for those with relationships.

Restaurants in Japan don’t work the way they do elsewhere. You can’t jump online and make a booking at the very top eateries in Tokyo – people here need to trust you to deal with you. They need to know that if you attend their restaurant, an intimate space with only eight or 10 people, you will fit in with the atmosphere, you will adhere to the etiquette and enhance other diners’ experience.

If you don’t know anyone, you can’t book. It’s that simple.

And Melburnian Rachel Lang knows people. She has been building these relationships for more than 20 years, since she first arrived as a starry-eyed backpacker on a five-day stopover that inspired her to dedicate her life to this country.

“There’s just always been something about it,” Lang tells me after that Toyosu visit. “I fell in love with Japan, and I understand it. But I have no idea why.”

You can’t fake what Lang has done. You can’t cut any corners. After that initial visit, Lang moved to Tokyo for two years, immersing herself entirely in a language school, unable to speak English to anyone, forced to learn to survive.

She then worked as an interpreter in Australia, a job she eventually quit in order to manage her biggest project yet: raising her young children in a completely Japanese environment, in Melbourne. Her children’s first language was Japanese. They were surrounded by books and TV shows in Japanese. They only played with other kids who were Japanese.

And every year, Lang would take them for three months to Japan, where they would attend Japanese creches and kindergartens. While they were doing that, Lang would visit restaurants. She would chat to chefs. She would form relationships.

“I was always by myself,” Lang says. “If you’re going to a restaurant with someone else you’re going to be speaking to that person. But I was always there by myself, talking to chefs. You become very close.

Exclusive access: a 12 course feast in a private room at famed yakiniku restaurant Yoroniku.Credit: Yoroniku

“The other thing was, everyone saw how I was bringing up my kids. And they would say, to go to that level, to have kids who speak perfect Japanese, you obviously love the country. They’re quite flattered.”

One thing leads to another. One contact leads to another. Pretty soon Lang had a list of chefs in her phone that read like a Michelin guide. It was never meant to be a business, just a natural progression of meeting people and being invited to their restaurants, forming friendships that have lasted decades.

But then it did become a business, as global corporations began to seek Lang out to book their high-end clients into restaurants no one else could.

“Because the chefs were all my friends, they said, ‘Oh, we’ll support you’,” Lang says.

“Ryujiro was the first one. Everybody trusted me because of Ryujiro, because he gave his word. And it was hugely successful.”

I will tell you, hand on heart: I’ve been to Japan a lot of times. I’ve eaten incredible food here and enjoyed myself so, so much. And yet still, I am in awe of the experiences Lang can access. This is the Japan I just stopped thinking about, because it’s so unreachable. It doesn’t even exist.

But it exists for Lang. And it exists for her clients.

That night after Toyosu we dine as a group at Yoroniku, one of the top yakiniku – grilled beef – restaurants in Japan. Mostly, guests here cook their own meat at a grill on their table, or have a waiter do it for them. But those people don’t know the owner, Vanne Kuwahara.

Lang does.

Kuwahara is cooking for us in a private room. He creates a mind-boggling omakase wagyu experience of 12 courses, each a different cut of beef, each cooked at a slightly different temperature to maximise flavour and texture, each prepared and served in a unique way.

This is an absolute masterclass in concept and execution, a symphony that builds to a crescendo, a meal in which every single delicious morsel is almost immediately usurped as the greatest thing you have ever eaten by the arrival of the next dish.

The final course, the climax, is thinly sliced, impossibly marbled wagyu that is braised quickly in stock, before being placed in a bowl with a raw egg yolk and topped with freshly shaved black Perigord and white Alba truffles. Kuwahara whips these ingredients together before passing them across to us. It’s just incredible. Ethereal. Otherworldly.

If you don’t know the right people, you can’t experience this. It’s that simple.

Plan Japan offers both private and shared tour itineraries in Japan, with a focus on high-end, exclusive food experiences, including all of those mentioned in the story above. For more information, including prices, see planjapan.com.au

The writer dined at Yoroniku as a guest of Plan Japan.