I started Ippai as a way to share my love for Japanese home cooking and showcase all the bounty of the Pacific Northwest. Like most cooks, after countless hours in the kitchen and long workweeks at restaurants like Castagna and Wafu, the most gratifying feeling is to eat comfort food on my days off. On those days, I crave my mom's cooking, but in Portland I quickly found that if I wanted a certain dish, I had to make it myself. I was craving the everyday foods you'd find in a Japanese home—seasonal and vegetable-driven. I grew up with my mom harvesting vegetables from our backyard and utilizing everything we had to create a meal, and I try to channel that resourcefulness and improvisational approach in every dish I put forward.
Ippai has shifted from farmers market stand to kaiseki dinners to monthly pop-ups at Milk Glass Mrkt as I search for new technical and creative challenges as a chef. But what’s stayed the same is my constant search for the dishes, memories, and feelings from childhood. Ippai is the Japanese word for “full” and to me it signifies that warmth, comfort, and openness of the house I grew up in. I want to recreate that feeling for families of all kinds.
Jane is cooking up a delicious meal for our BRUNCH IN BED
