Far East flavours from an Austro-Japanese duo

The Park Hyatt Hotel in Tokyo will probably be familiar to many people from the film "Lost in Translation", where it was the setting for the meeting between Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray. Likewise Kenichiro Ooe and Stefan Mörth meet here daily, albeit on a professional level.

As executive chef with more than 100 cooks, Stefan Mörth is responsible for the entire culinary concept of the hotel. Kenichiro Ooe has been managing the hotel’s in-house Japanese restaurant “Kozue” since the Park Hyatt opened in 1994. They come to Hangar-7 as a team in October, and we wait with bated breath to see what surprising creations will emerge when they work together.

Kenichiro Ooe will appear as an ambassador for his country and its cuisine. His career began at the age of 20 in the “Sezon”, a French restaurant in the Sunroute Hotel in Sakata under the watchful eye of chef Yoshiaki Morii. From there he moved to the “Honten Hamasaku”, a Kyoto-style kappo restaurant in the famous Ginza district of Tokyo. In 1983 Ooe San worked in the kaiseki restaurant “Kagaya” in Akasaka, Tokyo. After three years there he started at the “Shikitei” in Kodaira, also in Tokyo.

In 1989 he was promoted to chef de cuisine of the “Tachikichi” restaurant in Kichijoji, where he remained for a year before becoming executive chef of the “Koyo” restaurant in Ginza. During this time he was accorded the honour of cooking for Prince and Princess Akishinomiya, and of preparing a dinner for Crown Princess Masako Owada. As a fugu chef he also possesses a government licence to carry out the dangerous preparation of the puffer fish.

The European counterpart

 

Meanwhile, whether it is European or Asiatic cuisine, you can’t pull the wool over Stefan Mörth’s eyes. The native of Styria has worked in starred restaurants such as the Steirereck in Vienna, Eckart Witzigmann’s Aubergine in Munich or the Residenz owned by Heinz Winkler in Aschau. He spent several winter seasons at the Hospiz Alm in St. Christoph, and then after interim stops in Majorca and Marbella, in 1998 he was offered the unique opportunity of taking over the kitchen of the world-famous French restaurant “Le Normandie” in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Bangkok.

After two years at the legendary Oriental, he moved to the new Peninsula Hotel in Bangkok, from where after nearly five years in Thailand he accepted an offer to move to Tokyo, Japan, for the opening of the Grand Hyatt. In 2004 Mörth was called upon to open another Park Hyatt, this one being in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where he stayed until 2006, before returning to Tokyo, this time to the Park Hyatt Shinjuku.

Stefan Mörth continues to be impressed by the variety that Japanese cuisine has to offer. A particular focus of his is on fish from the world’s largest fish market Tsukiji, which he visits at least once a week. He also goes into rhapsodies over other products such as strawberries from Kyushu, Koichi tomatoes, matsutake mushrooms, Sendai or Yamagata beef, or pork from Okinawa. He has even planted herb and vegetable seeds from Japan in Austria, so that he doesn’t have to do without them in his home country.

Mörth’s path has been accompanied by honours: From 1992 to 1997 he was awarded two Gault Millau chef’s hats in every restaurant in which he worked as executive chef. This was followed in 1995 by his being selected as the best newcomer chef of the year in Austria. In 1996 he was represented in the cookery book “The best chefs of Austria”.