Shooting the Moon: New Food and Drink Programming at Japan Society

Our Culture & Community Program is exploring Japan’s food and drink space in new and previously uncharted territory alongside more familiar annual sell-outs. This interview with C&C’s Peter Tatara and Hannah Lee asks whether they’re planning to “shoot the moon”—as in winning at Hearts by winning the hearts of our audiences—or if they’re actually “shooting for the moon” through programming about DASSAI MOON, in which DASSAI will take on the challenge of brewing sake in a special experimental module to be installed on the International Space Station later this year.

Peter & Hannah:
When we look at any of our post-event surveys, whether from the Gallery, Performing Arts, Film, the Language Center or even anime premieres, the one thing that people express interest in over and over again is food. Food is a universal constant. Whether you’re into high art or pop culture, whether you’re looking for kabuki or J-Pop, food is the Japanese ambassador that knows no bounds. What we’re working on right now is presenting that universal Japanese ambassador—food—in a much bigger way at Japan Society. Typically we’ve done an annual sake tasting and the occasional wagashi event. Now we’re being much more active in cultivating direct food events, as well as really increasing the food content at many of the other events we’re offering.

In just a few weeks in early 2025 we’ve accomplished a great deal! We’ve done a Hokkaido tourism event that focused on ramen and sake. We produced an event with Bizen and Setouchi, two cities on the shores of the Seto Inland Sea, focusing on oysters and sake. We hosted a Japanese Curry Festival with both public and professional attendees. And we did a behind-the-scenes tour of the Brooklyn Kura brewery and tasting of their new Kura Shochu. The goal is to do a lot more of these kinds of events because our audiences love them and they’re very accessible. Everyone has an interest in ramen or sushi or sake or shochu, so we’re building more of these programs out specifically as gateway programming to bring people through our doors.

If you look at how popular Japanese food has become in New York it’s just amazing. At first, sushi was “Eew, raw fish” and now there are two sushi shops on almost every street corner! It’s amazing to see how much this has grown and how Japanese food is continuing to have a prolonged and multigenerational moment of excitement in New York. Part of what we’re doing with our food events is celebrating those victories. It’s also about spotlighting what’s next. What are the things that are not yet popular or not yet in vogue that we can showcase? For example, we’ve been presenting our annual sake lecture and tasting for nearly 30 years. Thirty years ago, sake was in a very different place in New York than it is today. Now we’re talking about doing events for Japanese wine, which no one in New York has ever tasted. Japanese wine is one of those wide new horizons we’re going to explore and unpack for New Yorkers.

What else is coming up? Our annual sake lecture and tasting returns at the end of June, presenting about 30 kinds of sake, all from different Japanese breweries. We’ll also be doing lots of other sake events. We’re working with DASSAI to host a series of quarterly sake lectures and tastings, the first of which is kicking off on May 19—Japan Society’s birthday. That should be a fascinating conversation about history and innovation, as we are not only celebrating the past 118 years but thinking about what tomorrow will look like for both Japan Society and DASSAI. DASSAI is a really interesting, forward-facing company that’s opened a massive brewery in New York State, and their ambition is to brew better sake in New York than in Japan, which is the most audacious statement possible—especially for a Japanese business! That sake is called DASSAI Blue, which is based on the proverb of the indigo plant, in which the dye is bluer than the plant itself. Not only is DASSAI really ambitious about what they’re doing in New York, but they’re also going to be test-brewing sake in space for the first time later this year, and we’re already speaking with them about doing an event focused on DASSAI MOON. DASSAI has a manifesto about how after we colonize the moon, sake will be the ideal alcohol to brew there based on the properties of making sake versus beer or wine. It’s not just a gimmick, it’s a generational project aimed at putting sake on the moon, and we’re very excited to speak about it.

Hopefully we’ll be hosting our first wine event at the end of May, working with one of Japan’s most premier Japanese vineyards who import very little stock into the U.S. We plan on hosting a high-level multiple course dinner pairing each course with one of their vintages, which is something that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to experience in New York—let alone anywhere in the U.S. We’re working on a takoyaki party with Karl Palma, an iconic fixture in the New York street food scene who has dedicated his life to making authentic takoyaki with a special proprietary grill imported from Osaka. We’re also working on a katsu sandwich event as well as a shokupan event about the buttery deliciousness of Japanese bread.

And we just did a shochu event where Japan Society members were able to taste shochu distilled by Kura Shochu, the first sake brewery here in New York. Kura is now using sake katsu, a by-product of sake brewing, to distill into a shochu that is officially being launched this summer—but Japan Society members were some of the first people on the planet to taste it. There’s some overlap into the literary space, as when we welcomed Sonoko Sakai, the acclaimed Japanese American cookbook author, at a talk and book signing (click here for her Miso Apple Pie recipe!). Nancy Matsumoto just came for a non-food related tanka event, but she’ll be back to talk about sake which is also one of her passions. We recently welcomed Per Oscar Brekell for a talk on his book, A Beginner’s Guide to Japanese Tea, that was published by Tuttle, and we’re talking with them about their huge number of books on Japanese food, including an upcoming book on tempura which we really hope to spotlight.

Another thing we’re looking at is hosting food events outside of the Japan Society space and using this as a way to help people discover Japan around New York City, which is one of the greatest foodie cities on the planet. We’ll be taking members upstate to Hyde Park on a special DASSAI tour, we’ll have guided excursions hitting local Japanese cocktail bars, and there’s much more to come. One of the most talked-about special events in recent years was our VIP Tasting at Suntory’s New York headquarters on the occasion of its Centennial. We’ll be going back to that amazing space, which has been written up in Architectural Digest, later this spring!

And of course we’re continuing to work with some of the Japanese regional governments to help promote regional cuisine—Bizen oysters from the Inland Sea being a prime example, something most Westerners—except those who came to the Japan Society event—don’t know about and have never tried. And we were absolutely thrilled by what the visiting ramen chef from Hokkaido was able to accomplish in Japan Society’s kitchen space! Food and drink, including sake, oysters, ramen, and regional sweets, make amazing ambassadors. There’s a big, cinematic universe of Japanese food events, and we’re writing the script! Got a suggestion or a connection for more food events? Shoot us an email at [email protected]!