ALKHOBAR: Fahad Alturki loves Japan. He also loves food. And music. As the founder of Kantami, under the umbrella of his company Green Sand Concepts, he’s providing experiences that combine all three.
Kantami is an eatery based around the concept of the izakaya — a casual gastropub-style Japanese establishment. Alturki describes the izakaya as “a cultural kind of gathering place.” The original branch is in his hometown of Khobar and there is also one in Riyadh.
“Kantami doesn’t have a literal translation; it’s our own name — a compound word we coined inspired by the Japanese language and culture from several Japanese words and concepts, including ‘kan’ — joy, delight, celebration, welcome; ‘mi’ — taste, flavor, the essence of food; and ‘umami’ — the celebrated cornerstone of Japanese cuisine,” Alturki explains. “It’s essentially the feeling of warmth or happiness when you have food in your belly, but it also signifies that feeling when you gather for a meal.”
Fahad Alturki (back, right) and his GSC colleagues. (Supplied)
It's also ‘set’ in a reimagined post-apocalyptic future — in which humans live alongside robots, androids, and cyborgs. “Why post-apocalyptic? I love post-apocalyptic movies and it just gives us something to draw on, design-wise. Placing something in the future gives us flexibility in our storytelling — flexibility in our food presentation, our menu creation, and our marketing. There are more references to work from — going backwards,” Alturki says. “At Green Sand Concepts, our forte is world-building and telling stories. Having a good story helps us flesh out our concept.”
At the Riyadh outlet, they recently introduced vinyl and music curation, with an occasional live Japanese listening bar. “I feel like it’s such an Asian thing to have music,” Alturki says. “We considered having karaoke, actually, but it just didn’t feel right. Then this opportunity came up with a music curator.”
Kantami is providing food for your tastebuds, eyes, and ears.
Flying Yakisoba. (Supplied)
“We don’t just serve food; we present experiences,” says Alturki. “It’s the food, the greeting, the decor, the music, the visuals, the lighting, and the vibe.
“So, this world, this story, means whatever is native to that particular city, we’ll end up sourcing that. Since Khobar is an oil- and gas-dominated city, you’ll find a lot of stuff related to that. But it’s not like we put up a piece of wood and say: ‘Imagine this is reclaimed.’ It is reclaimed! Some of the wood is stamped, like this one says ‘Halliburton.’ I figure is a company’s going to be related to the end of the world, that one’s going to be up there,” he continues with a smirk.
“Each Kantami is (based on) a different Japanese city. Kyoto is Japan’s original capital, so we wanted to start our story there — and that’s Khobar. I grew up here. This is my start and Kantami’s start. Every location will have its own theme: Riyadh is Osaka.
“At Kantami, we respect the cuisine and the culture that we are ‘stealing’ from,” he adds. “We are not guardians of Japanese cuisine, but we are guardians of our story, and we are guardians of our authenticity.”
Alturki’s passion for food was instilled early. “I grew up in a family that loved food. Being in the kitchen was such a big part of growing up. My mom, I believe, wanted girls, and she didn’t get any. But all my brothers and I love to cook,” he says. “It’s part of our culture. This is how we interact with people: ‘Come over and eat at my house.’ Also, my mom was extra, she was the hostess with the mostest.”
It wasn’t just about cooking, though. The family traveled frequently.
Tori Katsu Curry Bao. (Supplied)
“My parents would take a detour to go to a particular restaurant,” Alturki says. His mother was as happy eating from an authentic street-food cart as she was from a three-Michelin-starred kitchen. His father “cared more about vibes, the ambiance and the presentation. So growing up, I gave equal weight to both of these things.”
Does his mother help test his recipes, I wonder.
“No, my mom is super-supportive of everything, which makes her uniquely unqualified. She is biased,” he says with obvious affection. “Everything (I do) is great to her. She tells me: ‘You are the most beautiful boy. You are working too hard.’”
The work is paying off. Kantami’s menu has several stand-out dishes. The Tori Katsu Curry Bao, made of crispy chicken served in a pillowy bao bun drenched in katsu curry sauce and Japanese coleslaw is a favorite (Alturki prides himself on being the first to introduce katsu curry to the local scene); the Tokyo 2099 drink ‘magically’ changes color in an irredentist iced-tea elixir; the Ueno Bloom is a hibiscus and cherry rose iced tea with a fluffy cloud of cotton candy on top. But the showstopper is the Flying Yakisoba — a bowl of stir-fried soba noodles with yaki sauce and chopsticks ‘defying gravity’ by floating above the dish. Although the dishes are often dramatic, “nothing we do is purely decorative,” Alturki stresses.
“These are foods that I miss that I consider comfort foods. I just want to share them with people. I love sharing cuisine. I love hospitality — not just as an industry, but as a function, as a word. I love hosting. I love seeing people. (My partners and I) didn’t start this because we had nothing else to do; we wanted to do something that’s excellent — something homegrown that’s at an international level. We can absolutely do that.”
