Fragrance Free at Restaurants

The Essentials of Japanese Cuisine are “Gomi” (the Five tastes), “Gokan” (the Five senses), “Goshiki” (the Five colors) and “Goho” (the Five methods of cooking).

It is the essential duty of the chef to ensure that everything works well together to create a satisfying experience for the customer.

The customer also pays respect to the chef and the beautiful dishes, and follows the standard etiquette.

Recently, we often hear about issues with customers’ strong fragrances affecting the “Smell” among “Gokan” (the Five senses).

For various historical and climate-related reasons, Japanese people are very sensitive to such smells, and prefer an “unscented” environment, or at most a subtle fragrance.

Therefore, not only high-end restaurants and sushi restaurants, where a strong fragrance will obviously affect other diners’ appreciation of the fine flavors, but increasingly many regular restaurants are starting to ban the wearing of strong fragrance, perfume, cologne, or scented fabric softener.

This issue can be difficult to understand for foreign visitors, but if you want to have a pleasant experience at a restaurant in Japan, please be aware of your fragrance, and how it might impact the dining experience of other customers.