SCENTS AND THE CITY

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Senso-ji temple

Though working on Tokyo by Kenzo was his first fragrance project, Sato recently incorporated smell into his design of the Senri Rehabilitation Hospital. “I was surprised at how powerful scent is to humans: It soothes your pain, relaxes your muscles… ” He speculates that having mastered the nu­ances of fashion, architecture, interiors and beyond, perhaps for the Japanese, “the next step will be to develop the intangible things, like fragrance.”

I recall that on my first night in Tokyo, Jeff Ramsey, the brash young American chef of the seven-seat Tapas Molecular Bar at the Mandarin Oriental, told me he couldn’t find fresh cilantro. Local farms didn’t want to grow it; the smell was too strong. Yet Ramsey plays with smell deftly in 20 tiny courses, including a morsel of ham under an inverted teacup of smoke and a colourless jelly that tastes vividly of sun-warmed vine tomato.

In between courses, a pretty young bartender mixes us “imitation mojitos,” using the maracas-like shake peculiar to Tokyo mixologists. There is nothing to see, hear, smell or touch as she pours into highball glasses and urges us to sip. Yet the essence of bracing mint, piquant lime, tingling sweetness and rich rum rises from the straw. There is everything and there is nothing. I am tasting a Zen mystery, an unforgettable whiff of Tokyo.

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