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The best meat in the world

In­cred­i­ble things hap­pen in Barcelona. Proof of that is Hi­roki Ito’s re­cent visit from Japan. Ito rep­re­sents the third gen­er­a­tion of the Ito Ranch, lo­cated in Mie Pre­fec­ture, the only farm to sup­ply Japan and the world’s most valu­able meat: Mat­susaka beef. Many peo­ple have heard of Kobe beef, which was first ex­ported in 2014 and can only be found in seven restau­rants in the en­tire Span­ish state and few oth­ers around the world, but Mat­susaka beef has re­mained rel­a­tively un­known until now. And that is be­cause there is so lit­tle of it (just over 7,000 heads of cat­tle). It is so revered by the Japan­ese – those who can af­ford it, of course – that until last year, the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment had not al­lowed it to be ex­ported. Hi­roki Ito first vis­ited back in Sep­tem­ber, after the Akaneya Group be­came part of the Mat­susaka Beef As­so­ci­a­tion and the first for­eign com­pany to join this se­lect club in 60 years. The group, which owns the restau­rant Car­lota Akaneya, on Car­rer Pin­tor For­tuny in Barcelona and also has restau­rants in Madrid and Paris, there­fore now has the rights to im­port this meat.

Hi­roki Ito re­turned to Barcelona at the re­quest of twins Ser­gio and Javier Tor­res, two of the best chefs on the world stage, who have de­cided to in­cor­po­rate this meat into the menu of their three-Miche­lin-starred Cocina Her­manos Tor­res in Les Corts. “It will be on the menu after the sum­mer”, the broth­ers said, fan­tas­ti­cally im­pressed by the taste and ten­der­ness of this Japan­ese meat.

Mat­susaka cows are reared for be­tween 30 and 32 months, and the meat comes from vir­gin cows, which have there­fore never given birth (in con­trast with Kobe beef, which can come from cows that have given birth or neutered males). The most pre­cious part of Mat­susaka beef (the fil­let) costs 5,000 euros per kilo. In Japan there are only three restau­rants that serve it (one be­long­ing to the Ito fam­ily, where the Japan­ese Prime Min­is­ter is a reg­u­lar). The great news for those who have enough money to be able to in­dulge in this del­i­cacy is that after the sum­mer it will be avail­able in two Barcelona restau­rants.

fea­ture GAS­TRON­OMY

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