Omotenashi by Kazunori brings fine dining catering to your home

“Kazunori-san will be at the events as much as he can, juggling between his schedule and the omakase dinners at the restaurant,” Cruz comments. However, they have done several events outside the restaurant with their team of chefs who have trained under chef Kazunori for many years and could replicate his dishes faithfully and deliciously. “With the old ‘shokunin’ chefs like Kazunori-san (meaning the most professional of professionals), they are astonishingly persistent that each of their team members goes through hundreds of hours of practice before they are finally granted the authority to execute the dishes for the customers,” Cruz divulges. 

The Omotenashi by Kazunori concept was created to address all the pain points of entertaining at home. “Omotenashi truly means to pay attention to all the five senses, what you are supposed to, and not supposed to, experience. We even have a selection of curated music and can provide floral arrangements and scents to welcome their guests. The intention is to take away all the work from our clients, impress their friends and family, and allow them to simply enjoy,” Cruz communicates.

Read on to hear from Ryan Cruz: 

Serving and working in homes is challenging because not all homes, dining rooms, and kitchens are the same. How did you prepare the team for that change? Did your service wait staff go through different training? 

You’re right. It can be incredibly challenging. Operating a restaurant is tough enough where you purchase, create, and move stuff daily, even in a familiar environment. Doing this outside that familiarity increases that level of difficulty even further. 

I’m grateful that I have several friends in the industry who have been doing this for a while and were selfless in sharing their insights and experiences early on. It removed a lot of our blind spots, allowing us to focus on what exactly we needed to look out for in every segment of the operation, from preparation, transportation, and execution in an entirely new environment every single time. The ability of the team to adjust to new situations is critical. Of course, undergoing training is part of the foundation needed to perform well during the actual service. 

What helps is the iteration of repeated walkthroughs and simulations. There is a term in performance psychology called “implementation intention”, where you anticipate what can go wrong so that you can already prepare for the action that you need to take to address the deviation from your plans. 

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Your team were very prepared and detail-oriented with the table setting and all the tableware, from dishes to cutlery. It felt very elevated and really like a fine dining experience at a restaurant. How were you able to maintain such intricate service showmanship while keeping so organised in the kitchen?

One of the earliest tasks that we undertook was to identify all the dishes that required a lot of precision, as many high-end Japanese dishes do. We thought of what equipment was needed and allocated the limited space in our mobile kitchen. That removed any need to compromise the quality by pre-preparing most of the dishes in the commissary or restaurant while reducing the need to work extensively in the guest's home. It is also our practice to be minimally disruptive and respectful as we recognise that we are entering people's homes. 

⁠How are the menus crafted for every catering event? Are there set menus to choose from, or were those bespoke to the event? 

It is mainly based on the availability of ingredients. Whether it is the restaurant or the private dining service, we highly rely on flying in carefully picked ingredients from various regions of Japan. Stuff that is never frozen, only hand-carried while chilled, and therefore consumption has to be done within a narrow window. We have several items, many of which have become favourites of our regulars, which are available all year round. 

Our process is to find out the guest's needs and requirements and craft the menu around that, keeping in mind any restrictions or requests they may have. What the team appreciates about chef Kazunori is that he is incessantly creative and comes up with new dishes all the time, while being accommodating enough to allow for requests for old favourites.

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⁠Is there a minimum and maximum number of pax for a catering event? 

As this is for a more focused, intimate dining experience, we recommend a maximum of two tables of 10-12 people each for the plated service. For spreads, or what is more commonly known as buffets or station service, it is 40 people. 

Will the catering always be plated service, or will there also be buffet options?

Primarily, we will focus on plated service to give people an idea of what Omotenashi truly means, where the objective is to allow our clients to focus their energy on the food and their company. It also gives us a chance to showcase how highly valued presentation is in Japanese cuisine and able to properly execute it in a manner that is meant for a specific audience. 

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