I have worked in my fair share of kitchens over the years. At some stage while toiling at each, someone — usually a chef — would lose their temper with me and regain it only after loudly roasting me with words not fit for a newspaper. I thought of these episodes while sitting at the counter of Kakomi and observing chef and owner Kazuki Kakoiyama and his small team of chefs and waiting staff.

It's only a slight exaggeration to say you'd need to be psychic to pick up on what passes between them. Like many other kappo (counter-style restaurants) that serve haute cuisine, nothing must get between a patron and their food — especially the idle chit-chat of kitchen staff.

But the mood at Kakomi isn't somber: Chef Kakoiyama is jovial and enterprising. He also has that sixth sense of knowing when conversation is warranted, and when it's excessive. Interactions with him usually involve him helping you decipher a dish — like an artist called on to explain some abstraction. The first dish definitely needed its own Cliffs Notes.

The inspiration was rainy season, specifically the poetic image of rain drops forming a puddle on a large leaf until the weight of the puddle tips the leaf and the water spills out. At Kakomi, this took the form of a gorgeous, velvety green lotus leaf the size of a dinner plate, with zucchini, radish, peas and junsai (water shield) in the "puddle." We were instructed to take the leaf and with one swift movement shake it so that the puddle fell out and landed in a bowl of prawns and scallops. I could easily take up the rest of this review on the creativity at play in this first dish. Suffice to say, the theatricality of this complemented the taste: a vinegary tang in the jelly gave the dish a needed element of vitality.

One of the first things Kakoiyama asks as you settle in is how much time you have. My advice: Don't rush. I was there for the best part of two hours and the meal never dragged. The sashimi course was particularly unhurried, with each fish being served one at a time. The kochi (flathead), a white fish, was not unlike seabream, but with more bite. The katsuo tataki (bonito, seared on the outside, raw on the inside) and kinmedai (splendid alfonsino) were bordering on perfect.

In kaiseki (Japanese haute cuisine), the hassun (a course of mixed seasonal food) reveals the creativity and artistic temperament of the chef. On a plate brimming with seasonal ingredients, including sweet corn and sweet fish tempura and conger eel roll, Kakoiyama placed a symbolic crown linking the dish with either an auspicious temple or upcoming festival — the exact meaning was lost on me, but the Japanese diners around me appreciated it.

There's hardly room here, but I have to mention the shiso (perilla) ice-cream that captured that flavor of shiokari (spicy and salty) brilliantly.

Located in the basement of a hotel in Kitashinchi, Kakomi is, without question, worth discovering.