Aside from some road-laying and cosmetic work, the bristling high-rises of the Shiodome complex are complete. It's a brutal, soulless landscape on an inhuman scale. There's only one thing that can tempt us along those sterile walkways and mazelike underpasses: the promise of fine dining. And no one does "fine dining" -- this being the vogue British term for haute cuisine in its modern form -- like Gordon Ramsay.
He may not be a household name in Japan yet, but in London Ramsay is the hottest chef in a restaurant scene that remains overheated to the point of hyperventilation. For his first restaurant in the Far East, he has installed himself 28 floors above ground, inside the sleek, soaring hallways of the Conrad Hotel, which opened in July. It's a suitably grandiose setting for a chef who has a reputation for doing things on a larger-than-life scale.
If Ramsay is the celebrity chef of the moment, he deserves to be. He remains best known to the great British public for his TV shows, newspaper columns and feisty (some say perfectionist) personality, but he has a fistful of Michelin stars and a growing stable of restaurants to his hugely talented name.