Sakaya NYC Blog

Yesterday afternoon when we stopped by to check on the store, we encountered a veritable beehive of activity behind the building permits prominently displayed in the window. Upstairs, workers were busily fabricating the skeletal structure for the shelves. And downstairs, a team was engaged in putting the finishing touches on the newly erected sheetrock walls.

According to our neighbors, these efforts are continuing “’round the clock” which of course, gives us hope that they will complete construction in the next week to ten days. Yes, Sakaya is actually beginning to take shape! To this, we joyfully say….

Kanpai!

On Wednesday morning we were excited to open the New York Times Dining section and find a feature story on Hiro and Swee our design and construction dream team (link provided at the end of this post). It has been a true pleasure getting to know them and we couldn’t be happier that they’ve garnered this recognition for their work.

When we first met them last March we were impressed by their humility, candor, and interest in understanding what our vision was. Although they tend to work on smaller scale restaurants, our store was small even by their standards but they believed in Sakaya and made us their first retail project. Their creativity and craftsmanship was the perfect match for what we envisioned as the personality of our store. We hope that when you visit us that you’ll feel welcome and appreciated by not only the staff, but also by the environment that Hiro and Swee have created.

Kanpai!

NYT 10/17/07 Dining Section

As we await the next step in the construction of the interior of the store, we thought that the time was right to introduce a thumbnail sketch of the illustrious history of nihonshu (sake)…

With over 1,700 years of history, sake is older than the Japanese written language. Lore has it that natural airborne yeast landed on an open container of rice producing a slightly fermented liquid that gave some lucky farmers a pleasant buzz. A more factual history documents sake as having migrated with the first Chinese immigrants to arrive in Japan. In any case, by the year 700 or so, it had gained favor with the Japanese Imperial Court which formed its own brewing department. As Buddhism took root in Japan, sake took on a religious ceremonial role bringing sake-making directly into the hands of the shrines and temples. It was during this period that sake brewing methods and “technology” made major advances creating the beverage that resembles what we know today. Within another 400 years or so, breweries had cropped up all over the region surrounding the ancient capitals of Nara and Kyoto and pasteurization was discovered (about 300 years before Louis Pasteur was born!) as a means of prolonging the life of the product.

From its ceremonial start, sake went on to become a staple of daily life for common folk and an integral part of the national culture. Following WW II, the end of rice rationing and brewing innovations produced great strides in sake diversity and quality with Japanese national consumption peaking in 1974. Unfortunately, the volume and number of breweries have been in decline ever since.

Today, there are roughly 1,100 active sake breweries (sakagura or kura) spread throughout all but one of Japan’s 48 prefectures. Sounds like quite a few right? Well, in 1923 there were about 10,000! And as recently as 1970 and 1988, there were 3,500 and 2,500 respectively.

While the number of breweries and overall sake production has fallen, the good news is that premium or ginjo-shu sake production has actually increased. Even better news is that we in the U.S. are a prime market that has captured the attention of Japan’s sake industry. The interest in sake in our country has grown rapidly as evidenced by the year-over-year double digit increases in import volume over the last several years. Our country has only begun to discover the pleasures that centuries of Japanese brewing craftsmanship has created and refined to one of the most intriguingly complex, food friendly beverages on the planet.

And that dear friends is why Sakaya will be there for you!

Read the rest of this entry »

October 1st is Sake Day or Nihonshu no Hi in Japanese. Sake Day officially originated in 1978 when the Japan Sake Brewers Association declared it as the day to celebrate and promote the enjoyment of sake. Historically, its origin can also be traced to the implementation of the Japanese State Taxation Law in 1895 which taxed sake based on a production calendar beginning in October. In addition to the practical (tax) and rice harvest rationale for this timing, there is also the idea that it has some basis in the fact that the kanji or Chinese character for sake is é…’, which is very similar to that of the Rooster, the tenth sign of the Chinese zodiac é…‰.

On this particular Sake Day, we are also celebrating the progress on the interior of our shop. The personality of Sakaya is beginning to take shape with freshly painted “river rock” colored walls, a “metallic pearlescent” white ceiling, and a stripped and refinished cedar-shade floor.

Please join us in enjoying a cup, glass, or bottle of sake today to thank our friends in the sake brewing community for their dedication to creating and producing this exquisite beverage.

Kanpai!

We wanted to thank the sleuthlike blogger Down By the Hipster for their continuing support. Several months ago they took note of the Community Board meeting poster in our window and have been reporting our progress ever since. More recently, we’ve been approached by some other members of the blogosphere as well as the food and entertainment media so we’ve added another category to this blog, “In the News” to offer readers another means to catch up what’s being reported about the shop.

As we near the beginning of construction, we will soon begin to spread the word about Sakaya more aggressively, but before we do, we wanted to offer a special note of appreciation to DBTH for discovering and rooting us on!

Kanpai to you Down By The Hipster!

On Friday we signed off on our architect Tsuruta-san’s final plans setting wheels in motion for the build out.   FYI Tsuruta-san’s previous work includes Jewel Bako, Chikalicious, both Momofukus,  Soto, and Kyotofu.  We couldn’t contain our excitement as we finally reached the point where the transformation of our barren store of eight months will begin to take shape soon.  First step is acquiring the building permits of course, which will probably take about two weeks.  After that, construction is anticipated to be another three.

In the meantime, we’ve been attending sake distributor events over the last couple of weeks tasting our palates off to determine which tasty brews to offer our customers when they (you) walk through our door for the first time.  We’re planning to open with about 75 – 80 different sake to start but, believe it or not,  it’s really tough to keep it to that number!  Don’t be surprised if the selection exceeds 100 or more in short order.

We’ve been excited about Sakaya ever since the idea came to us but, now that we’re on the verge of beginning construction, we wanted you to know that it won’t be long now until there’s a place to go to indulge your passion or curiosity about sake!

Kanpai!

Simply put, Sakaya means “liquor shop” in Japanese or even more literally, “place that sells alcoholic beverages.” The word sake in Japanese, is actually the broad term referring to all alcoholic beverages. Nihonshu is the term used to differentiate the beverage that is brewed from rice, water, koji, and yeast. Does it really matter which term you use? Nope. If you go to Japan or when you come to see us, either will get the job done.

As NYC’s first shop specializing in sake, we chose our name for its no-nonsense, straightforward expression of what we envisioned the store to be…a place where you’ll find only carefully selected sake (and a couple of other Japanese tipples), have the opportunity to taste many of them, and get answers to your questions.

There is much to enjoy and learn about sake (if you so desire). We want to make it as easy and as simple as possible… starting with our name.

Kanpai!

After receiving the prior approval of local Community Board 3, and after five months of waiting since we filed, our appearance before the New York State Liquor Authority Board on July 11 yielded a thumbs up on our license application! In fact, they uncharacteristically complimented us on our “unique idea” and wished us “good luck.”

We’re now going full throttle on finalizing the plans for the shop interior design and construction. Along with that, we’ll be meeting with our distributors, tasting, and selecting the sake that we’ll be stocking to offer you when we open our doors. If you live in the neighborhood, you’ll notice some subtle changes in the window over the next few weeks as we begin to give passersby a taste of what Sakaya will be all about.

We’ll continue to keep you up to date on our progress. Coming up next….some Sake 101 basics.

Hi! We’re Rick and Hiroko and we’re sake enthusiasts with a dream. Our dream? To share our excitement about premium sake with kindred spirits like you.

Although we’ve tasted or drunk (yes, there is a difference) a number of different sake, we are always seeking to learn something new about our favorite beverage. We’ve sought to expand our knowledge under the tutelage of Sake Samurai John Gauntner at his Professional Sake Course in Tokyo, and visited sake breweries, numerous izakaya (sake pubs) and sake shops throughout Japan. We’ve also experimented at home with food pairings both Japanese and Western (cheese with sake? absolutely!) and yet we still realize that we’ve only nicked the tip of the sake “iceberg!” And we certainly don’t ever expect to master the subject either. If we did, we wouldn’t enjoy it so much! There is always more to explore and learn and we believe that much of the fun is in sharing that with you.

Rick’s passion for sake began 6 years ago with a trip to the then-new East Village sushi restaurant Jewel Bako when he was Associate Publisher at Food & Wine Magazine. Their omakase dinner paired with a selection of different sake was a stunning revelation of its variety and versatility….served lightly chilled, it was nothing like that warm “jet fuel” that he’d had over the years prior at other sushi restaurants. As a long-time wine enthusiast, he was surprised to discover that sake too had an alluring abundance of aromatics and flavors, all from the deceptively simple combination of rice, water, koji, and yeast. That seminal experience launched a headlong pursuit of sake tasting anywhere the brew was available; the annual sake-tasting at The Japan Society, the large-scale Joy of Sake, and of course, numerous visits to Sakagura, our “research laboratory,” not to mention our more intimate sessions at home. The origin of Hiroko’s passion? Well, when you grow up in Japan where sake is an integral part of the culture, let us just say that it grew a bit more organically for her.

But, back to our dream…

Although there have been a number of Japanese restaurants in New York for years, there has been a recent surge in new izakaya-type restaurants such as Megu, Matsuri, and EN Japanese Brasserie (to name but a few) that serve dishes based on “homestyle” cooking for which sake is a perfect match. Along with this trend, sake has also permeated the beverage lists of non-Japanese restaurants such as Bouley, Chanterelle, Per Se, and Tocqueville, and in other Asian establishments such as the two Momofukus, Bao, and Sushi Samba. All of this has resulted in an ever-growing variety of opportunities to try and experience the pleasures of premium sake.

We believe the time has come for New York to have its first shop specializing in premium sake. Our shop, Sakaya, will focus on acquainting, educating, and familiarizing patrons with the pleasures of drinking sake, and pairing them with food. We hope to offer a learning experience that not only creates an appreciation for sake but also for the Japanese culture from which it originates.

Welcome to our introductory blog. We invite you to join us on our journey to fulfilling the dream. We’ll be sharing our experience as we build Sakaya, along with some basic information, fun facts, and insights into the cultural heritage of sake. We look forward to having you with us throughout the store’s gestation period and when we finally open our doors.

Kanpai!