The food chain that matters is not about who's eating whom, but who's cooking what--and where. The right chef, one with training and firsthand knowledge of the country where the cuisine originated, can make all the difference at a restaurant.
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So, of course, can the wrong chef.
At Samurai, once Denver's premier Japanese restaurant, the kitchen had slipped so low on the local food chain that owner Yoshi Saito was having trouble finding any experienced chef, Japanese or not. He was just about to give up, when suddenly Isamu "Sam" Furuichi was free.
Like many of Denver's best-known Japanese chefs and restaurateurs, Sam had worked at Samurai long ago, before he'd gone on to open his own eatery, Matoi, in Lakewood. Look inside the kitchen of just about any successful Japanese joint in town--Japon, Sushi Den, Geisha--and you'll find someone who worked at Samurai at one point in his career. "I have had many people work for me in the past twenty years," says Saito, a Tokyo transplant who opened Samurai on Colorado Boulevard in 1978, then moved it to its current Arapahoe Road location six years later. "They get their experience here, and then they go on to become successful at their own restaurants."
Although Furuichi had been an experienced chef in his native country before moving to Denver a decade ago and taking that first job at Samurai, Matoi was hardly a financial success. The teeny spot survived for over three years, but it was a struggle every minute, according to Furuichi's wife, Billie Hopkins-Furuichi, who often speaks for Sam, since he knows little English.
"We finally closed Matoi in December of last year," says Billie, who worked at Sam's side through the entire ordeal and now teaches Spanish in the Wheat Ridge school district. "It was so hard and such a tough location. But we gave it our best shot, and I don't think anyone can say we didn't."
Sam certainly gave it his best cooking, whipping up country-style fare solo in a kitchen the size of most home bathrooms. Add his generous nature with customers and his wife's appealingly quirky manner to the fabulous food, and Matoi quickly became one of my favorite restaurants--and one I greatly missed when it shut down.
After closing Matoi, Sam Furuichi worked for a while as a traveling chef, doing elaborate catering and private Japanese dinners. But then one of his best friends, Miki Hashimoto, needed a new head chef at Japon, which he'd opened two years before on South Gaylord Street. "A lot of people advised both Isamu and Miki against working together because they were such good friends," Billie says. "It was really hard on both of them. Something tragic had happened to Japon's head chef, and so Miki needed someone very quick, and Sam wanted to be there for him."
The arrangement didn't work out, and Sam left Japon. Soon he was approached by the owners of the dying Fettoush on Market Street, who asked him to help start a sushi bar in the same space. It was called Nikko--during the brief time it was open this summer, that is. The combination of two Lebanese owners and one Japanese chef didn't work well, either. "The men who owned Nikko--they are the nicest people," Billie says. "Sam went in and helped them set up accounts with the Japanese distributors and helped select the dishes, set up the front of the restaurant, find a sushi chef. But the cultural gap, I think, was too much." Sam bowed out of the business just before Nikko abruptly closed its doors earlier this fall.
Which just happened to be around the same time that Yoshi Saito found himself at his wit's end at Samurai. "He was getting complaints from the customers that the food wasn't tasting Japanese anymore," says Billie. "Since Sam had had a good working relationship with Mr. Saito before, he called Sam and asked him to come back."
And with Sam back, Samurai was set for a comeback.
I'd eaten there two months ago, shortly before Sam's return. On that night, the beef teriyaki ($11.50) was so sweet, it tasted as though someone had dumped a cup of sugar into the sauce before it was sent out. The sukiyaki ($16.95) featured another awful sauce, one that tasted overwhelmingly of sake (and, no, I wasn't drinking any that night). The tonkatsu ($10.50), a breaded pork cutlet, was missing half of its breading, and the meat underneath hadn't been pounded nearly enough to keep it from being fatty and chewy. The tempura and udon combo ($10.50) was way overpriced for five pieces of greasy, batter-coated shrimp and vegetables accompanied by a bowl of noodle-choked broth so bland it was like water. The only dish that worked was the shabu-shabu ($16.95 per person), New York sirloin cooked at our table fondue-style in a clear broth--but then, we were doing the cooking.
Two weeks after that disastrous meal, I returned for a second round. From the first bite, it was clear that something had changed in the kitchen--but I had no idea that Sam Furuichi was back on the job.
