Mieda

Restaurant Details

Mieda is one of the few restaurants in Hokkaido that is so hard to book that scoring a reservation is halfway through impressing a date.

Sequestered inside an unassuming building in Sapporo, it’s the kind of place that manages to blur lines between refinement and avant-garde, all while preserving the soul of the local ingredients it celebrates. The evening begins once you're seated at one of eight counter seats overlooking a horizontal kitchen. The pacing of the multi-course meal immediately sets the tone, but the dishes it covers inform diners of Mieda’s approach — while kaiseki may be rhythmic, Mieda’s cooking is the free-spirited, yet harmonious, counterpart.

On any given evening, you might be wowed by gyoza stuffed with sea urchin and shark fin, or abalone paired with summer vegetables. A signature touch of Mieda is the lattice-carved vegetables, such as squash or cucumber, which elegantly blanket dishes underneath.

Other dishes lean into bold contemporary flavors, like pistachio chawanmushi with Bafun sea urchin, turning the dish into a tug-of-war between earthy, nutty sweetness and oceanic saltines, and corn tempura topped with osietra caviar and chopped black truffles. The Ezo abalone, dressed in lemon-infused olive oil, sings with freshness, while a seasonal clay-pot rice dish provides the perfect conclusion to the meal.

But Mieda wouldn’t be where it is today — an esteemed culinary beacon in the cold of Sapporo — without Chef Mieda’s warm, welcoming service. Any initial thoughts that the dining experience might feel cold or distant quickly fade as he greets his patrons with a bright smile.