“The tasting menu restaurant to end all tasting menu restaurants.” It could easily be Sorekara’s slogan if Sorekara expressed a bit of toxic gastro-linity, but that’s not the restaurant’s style. Nor is it how chef/co-owner William Shen rolls. He’s a fly-under-the-radar kinda guy, and as conceptual and philosophical and experiential as Sorekara is, the restaurant’s striking yet simple tableaux tell the story of time, its impermanence and the significance of every fleeting moment.
In a soaring anteroom, we’re asked to focus our attention on a large painting on which the words from 13th-century Japanese writer/recluse Kamo no Chōmei’s literary work Hōjōki are etched — “The flowing river never stops and yet the water never stays the same. Foam floats upon the pools. Scattering. Re-forming. Never lingering long. So it is with man and all his dwelling places here on earth.”
That’s some heavy, contemplative stuff. Then we all pop a spherical pouch that looks like a tomato, only it’s made of tomato skin and filled with tomato water. (This was mid-August in Florida, after all — a time when tomatoes flourish as strongly as the state’s collective sense of hysteria.)
And after a procession down a very tranquil (and very gorgeous) hallway, we’re led to another room where a small bite and a mocktail are presented on a bar fashioned from a 900-year-old kusunoki tree. Compared to that aged wood, the lifespans of bite (a crispy tartlet of wild aged kanpachi belly with a plum-and-kumquat gel topped with ikura and lemon verbena) and drink (forgive me, but the ingredients of Josue Villacis’ wonderfully crafted quaff escaped me) were short, to say the least. And you can’t blame the impermanence of my memory; I mean, there were 20-plus dishes to be eaten through the course of the three-hour (or was it four-hour?) affair. Makes sense that a restaurant immersed in the temporal philosophy of sorekara (translation: “and then” in Japanese) would require a significant time commitment from guests.
Yet to document every impeccably presented dish in detail, most of which are served on a 700-year-old live-edge counter in a bright room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Lake Baldwin, would diminish the restaurant’s intent for every guest to experience Sorekara without any outside influence. The less a newbie patron knows, the better. In fact, photographs and videos are discouraged, so woe to the influencer. But to not document at least some of the impeccably presented dishes in detail would diminish the intent of a restaurant review.
Shen’s creations are inspired by the 72 micro-seasons of Japan. So the menu, like that flowing river, never stays the same. The dishes I had on my first visit in March were entirely different than the ones I had in August. A fermented sea cucumber intestine fortified with a confit egg yolk and folded into a takoyaki-style pancake was replaced by horse mackerel stacked with daikon, marinated chard and black truffles sauced with a watercress nage and moussed with scallop and leek. The ingredients are very much Japanese and the relationships Shen has forged with Japanese farmers and fishermen means those goods get passed on to Sorekara’s patrons.
Of the bites small and not so small, standouts included rice crackers compressed with icefish from Mount Fuji; Korean flounder with walnut, shiso and mustard; foie gras with strawberry, duck confit and Manchego cheese fumet; and a Hokkaido hairy crab tartlet with avocado and olive oil. Dishes also veer into French territory, and nothing says French fine dining more than squab. A marinated and seared breast along with a squab terrine, squab forcemeat and squab tea is how my most recent visit came to its savory end. I’d love to mention the gizzard shad stacked atop brown butter milk toast with avocado ice cream, figs and shiso; or the course served with a side of legerdemain (can’t say more); or head somm Jason Howick’s expertise and casual mien that made it easy for us to misbehave, but time’s a-tickin’.
Sorekara’s final act plays out in a plush room where pastry chef Francesco Benedetto gets to play and patrons get to pay, though not before getting stuffed with some novel takes on a PB&J “toast” and coffee and donuts. Benedetto’s tabletop Zen garden with various bonbons and mignardises made to look like rocks was an absolute class finale. Many (myself included) decry such high-ticket bastions of foam and fermentation where, in the name of Michelin, food is pricked, plumed and tweezed into submission to the point where the delicious joy of it all is lost.
That said, Sorekara is more than just a restaurant. It’s art exhibit, cultural spectacle, philosophy class and architectural venue. It’s a device used to drive Shen’s food story forward — a story whose flowing moments aren’t meant to be appreciated in retrospect, but digested in real time. Oh, I neglected to mention the cost: $270 on paper, but nearly $350 after tax/tip/fees. And that doesn’t include drinks. Indeed, at Sorekara, time is also money.
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This article appears in Oct 30 – Nov 5, 2024.