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After a cold winter in Hokkaido, the melting snow breathes a new spring.

Alongside the beautiful seasons of Northern Japan, we have followed the four chefs for a year and captured their lives as they live and create within the culture and environment of Hokkaido.

French restaurant “La Sante” serves the taste of spring with milk lamb and white asparagus grown by the nature of Hokkaido. “Ajidokoro” masters Japanese cuisine as a comprehensive art of hospitality, passing down the wisdom of ancestors who sought delicious food even in harsh climates. “Maruzushi,” deeply rooted in the atmosphere of Susukino, the northern entertainment district, creates a cozy space in the city’s nightlife. “Agriscape,” led by Chef Yoshida, who serves as both farm manager and head chef, cultivates vegetables and livestock with their own hands, embodying a cyclical restaurant model.

As we seat you at the beautiful table of Hokkaido, we serve you with the delightful stories of the chefs, farmers and citizens that surround it.

TRAILER

The Chefs

La Santé

Takeshi Takahashi

Chef Takahashi runs La Santé alongside his wife, Madam Miyuki Takahashi. He trained extensively in regions such as Bordeaux, France. Around May through June, during the season for white asparagus and milk lamb, customers visit from all over Japan to enjoy these specialties.

AGRISCAPE

Kaori Yoshida

After graduating from Doshisha University’s Department of English Literature, Chef Yoshida studied abroad in the United States, where she gained experience in the food and beverage industry as part of her coursework. She then honed her skills at restaurants in Tokyo and Sapporo, and after completing agricultural training, she became the head chef and farm manager at Agriscape.

Maru Zushi

Junnosuke Kawasaki

Chef Kawasaki grew up watching his father, a sushi chef, at work. Upon graduating high school, he enrolled in a culinary school in Sapporo. After graduation, he honed his skills through training at Ozasa Sushi in Tokyo. When his father opened a restaurant in Hawaii, he took over Maru Zushi in 2016.

Ajidokoro

Hiroshi Sakai

Born in Kuriyama. After enrolling in Tsuji Culinary Institute in Osaka, Chef Sakai began his training at the original branch of Shofukuro in Shiga Prefecture. After serving as head chef at Shofukuro Tokyo, he returned to his hometown of Kuriyama to open Ajidokoro. Awarded two Michelin star in 2017.

Director’s Statement

The Food of Hokkaido. This has been an immensely significant theme for me.
I spent the first 22 years growing up in Hokkaido before relocating to Tokyo, where I worked in the film industry for over a decade. Upon returning to my Hokkaido birthplace and creating films and documentaries, I felt compelled to create a movie about Hokkaido’s cuisine.
In Tokyo’s hustle and bustle, I often neglected to spend enough time appreciating food.
But in Hokkaido, where its seasons are exquisitely expressed through its food, my desire to capture this landscape grew.
I longed to portray how the rich ingredients of each season reflect the beauty of the sky’s changing colors from sunrise to sunset—the precious flow of time I had nearly forgotten in my life in Tokyo.The film aims to portray the vitality and temporal rhythm of the vast northern landscape. I would like the audience to sense Hokkaido’s very essence through the screen, creating a deeply resonant experience. This is my interpretation of a “film about the food of Hokkaido.”

Director

Tetsuya Uesugi

Born in Sapporo City, Hokkaido, Japan, Uesugi is known for his work in commercials and short films. In 2010, he established KUANI, a film studio that means “I” in the Ainu language of the indigenous people of Hokkaido. As the name suggests, the focus is on expressing unique individualities through a documentary-style approach. In recent years, in addition to commercial work, Uesugi has been working on narrative films and documentary projects set in Hokkaido, his hometown.