How do you innovate in a centuries-old culinary tradition that prizes uniformity above all else?
Shiro restaurant's "crystal sushi" menu manages to update the Japanese cuisine without departing from what makes sushi popular, or going down that dreaded culinary road to disaster: fusion.
Crystal sushi is created by placing handcrafted slivers of flavoured jelly, made fresh each morning, on top of traditional sushi, giving an extra zing to staples such as fatty salmon and yellowtail.
While one might expect the jelly to overpower the fish, the flavours are beautifully subtle. Scallop with sake rose jelly is particularly clever, with the slightest hints of alcohol and fragrance accentuating and complementing the flavour of the shellfish, which remains the star of the dish.
Shiro's chefs developed the idea during an internal culinary "hackathon" day, during which they were challenged to find a way of updating the food. A number of ideas were put forward but crystal sushi won on both looks and flavour. The iridescent, semi-transparent slivers of jelly add a touch of sophistication and glamour to a cuisine that is dominated by takeaway sashimi and conveyor-belt rolls.