Michelin-starred Soseki is a city splurge spectacular | Review
There are hours of work on the delicate plate in front of me, the centerpiece of which is a sherbet of sorts.
Purple rice from Jacksonville’s Congaree and Penn is steeped in milk along with the lees, or sedimentary elements, of makgeolli, a Korean fermented rice beverage.
The rice imparts a pale lavender color, one of those shades of white you can’t tell from another until you fan out all the swatches from the paint store in a layer.
There is fresh persimmon gelée; there is locally made, single-origin Petal Honey; there are purple rice chips and the tart-salt-spice of yuzu kosho.
This was the first of two dessert plates at a recent Soseki Modern Omakase sake dinner, and as I pore over its beauty — a must-do with each incredible dish in this $300 degustation-style experience — newly minted chef de cuisine Kevin Abanilla advises guests to crush and mix it a bit before partaking.
“It tastes like Froot Loops,” he says. A few people chuckle.
“$300 for something that tastes like Froot Loops?” some of you may marvel.
But the last time I was here, before the Michelin star in 2022 (which they retained this year), before beverage director Benjamin Coutts received Michelin’s 2023 Sommelier of the Year Award, before executive chef/owner Michael Collantes and his team had even been at this game for very long, I’d heard a chef refer to a dish featuring a triangular pita cracker as “the Dorito course.”
When culinarians at this level use playful comparisons like these to describe their creations, it tells me two things.
The first is that they don’t take themselves too seriously.
The second is that they’re interested in connection, in drawing relatable lines that bridge the knowledge gap between themselves and their guests, prompting discussion and deeper understanding of “fancy food” in a way that, much like your favorite childhood breakfast cereal, is familiar and fun.
No new stars, but 13 Orlando restaurants join the Michelin Guide ranks
It is difficult for those outside the industry to comprehend the level of art, craft, and love that goes into one gorgeous bite so quickly consumed. It is work that extends well beyond the long hours that Abanilla and Collantes and their growing team clock in the kitchen.
It is time spent poring over produce at the farmers market or garden-grown herbs at the Edible Education Experience. Not to mention 10-hour shifts bringing together the minutiae of a meal of this magnitude.
“I love how everyone got into such an uproar about a hot dog,” Collantes jokes, doing his part to keep the Primrose Lanes housemade wiener chat alive. “Please make sure that somewhere in this article, you tell everyone you paid $200 for congee.”
Banter like this could easily have happened over the counter the night before. And after the Dorito course and the Froot Loops course, the idea of a Nathan’s course seems entirely plausible.
“That’s the fun, whimsical part of what we do with our service,” Collantes notes. “We don’t want it to be by the book or what people might expect to get at a Michelin-starred restaurant.”
The casual chat and curated playlist featuring tracks from Berlioz to the Beastie Boys and beyond notwithstanding, the food most certainly is.
Collantes says dinners such as this one are “sake first, food second,” but as I reflect on the otoshi (“snack”) plate that opened the meal with four stunning bites — it’s all I can do not to ring him up and facetiously call BS.
Four bites.
“Shrimp ceviche” has chef Anthony Esquivel’s stamp, showcasing the Nikkei (Japanese-Peruvian) stylings so popular of late. Purple potatoes, grown south of Gainesville, are the foundation. An olive oil-dashi confit imparts salty umami on which sweet Royal Red Shrimp from Port Canaveral perches, steeped in a light bath of leche de tigre with deep-cut Peruvian flavors.
“Aji tartare” features mackerel seasoned with local hibiscus flower that began its pickling process last year. Ginger scallion oil tempers its acidity, as does the gravity-defying milk bread pillow on which it sits. This comes courtesy of front-of-house staffer Cora Rice, whose rice dumplings will star in the final dessert course.
Chef Mike Vang’s bo loc lac (shaken beef, a Vietnamese dish reflective of his own background) sees its Wagyu meshed with a fish sauce caramel, then tucked into a shell made of rice that’s cooked into a paste before it is puréed, mold-pressed and twice fried.
Best Splurge: 2023 Orlando Sentinel Foodie Awards
And the uni tempura? You could read over my notes on the process, but do you need more foreplay than “uni tempura?”
Here, I pause to remind you: All of this is what goes into PLATE ONE.
There will be something like 23 more before we are through.
“When we create these sake programs, there’s so much thought,” says Collantes. “We always talk about how we overengineer everything we do … but there’s just a lot of talent in the room, and it’s great that we can showcase everyone’s individuality and passions.”
If Soseki was a gathering storm in 2021, it is now a culinary typhoon.
Collantes wasn’t even there on this particular night. His confidence is merited.
Abanilla’s ease into his new role has been hard-earned since he and Collantes connected in 2020 with a Hallmark Channel-meets-Food Network sort of serendipity.
“I was pre-med at one point, then I went into accounting,” says Abanilla, whose father is a physician and mother is an accountant.
“I followed their routes, but I wandered around and eventually landed in the kitchen.”
He studied hospitality at UCF, interned amid the Rosen Hotels properties and, while researching the restaurant scene, heard some buzz about a guy who was opening a Filipino-American restaurant at Lotte Market.
“I looked him up. I saw that he’d worked with Joël Robuchon and Eric Ripert and thought if I’m going to dive into the industry, I’m probably going to learn something from this guy.”
He joined the Taglish team two months post-opening.
“Kevin came in with zero cooking experience,” Collantes says. “But he was very hungry, willing to do anything and everything. He had raw talent and so much drive. He thought about things very differently. He approaches things in a different way. That’s very valuable.”
The synergy shows.
As does their collective affinity to grow the talents of the team’s newer faces, some of which aren’t long for Soseki. They’ll be moving into Collantes’ upcoming projects, including the Soseki-adjacent Bar Kada sake lounge and Sushi Saint hand-roll bar and intimate sushi lounge, where guests will see “really interesting sashimi” he says.
I look forward to what could interest me more than Soseki’s Bluefin course, which now sits firmly at the top of my “if I could only eat one thing for the rest of my life” list.
Eight slices of Baja-caught bluefin, dry-aged for 22 days, showcase four flavors and textures that go from lean to fatty. Each is distinct.
Dry-aged fish is trending stateside these days but is nothing new in Japan, where the technique has been honed for centuries.
Describing otoro as luxe is nothing new either, but what about that “$200 congee?”
At Soseki, it’s not quite the beloved rice gruel on which uncountable colds have been purged.
For one thing, this one, cooked down risotto-style and made from several different grains, including two from Japan and the Midlands variety from Congaree and Penn, comes with slices of slow-seared Lake Meadow Naturals duck on top.
Imbued with duck stock and dashi, it is topped with a zabaione that Vang crafted from the offals.
“You know, very basic. Like your mom makes it at home,” Collantes offers.
We laugh, but that duck is no joke.
Look for my Primrose Lanes follow-up, “How to make a $200 congee” story soon.
Meantime, Soseki, with its twinkling star, is the sake-centric splurge to beat.
If you go
Soseki Modern Omakase: 955 W. Fairbanks Ave. in Winter Park, sosekifl.com
Find me on Facebook, TikTok, Twitter or Instagram @amydroo or on the OSFoodie Instagram account @orlando.foodie. Email: amthompson@orlandosentinel.com, For more foodie fun, join the Let’s Eat, Orlando Facebook group.
