The most popular Asian cuisine is Korean, which is attracting the most interest thanks to the effects of millennia-old fermentations that are being tried out everywhere. René Redzepi is the most important European researcher of these ancient techniques. A sophisticated and healthy cuisine that uses kimchi (cabbage and other fermented foods), yang and gochujang as condiments, and soy sauces aged for 5 to 10 years. Junghyun Park (Atomix**, New York, USA) is a New York sensation. One of the top ten restaurants in the world in the latest 50 Best Restaurants list. A 14-seat basement counter on the edge of Manhattan's Koreatown. Spaniard Ruben Hernandez is the head of research and development at Atomix. Mingoo Kang (Mingles**, Seoul, South Korea) has worked in Spanish restaurants such as Zuberoa, Martín Berasategui and El Bohío and is a great reference point for Korean cuisine. Like Atomix, he interprets ancient fermentation, one of the oldest applied biotechnologies, which has been used to preserve food for more than 6,000 years.

Japanese talent

And at a gastronomic summit like Madrid Fusión, which always opens its doors, Japan is another of the territories that will be bringing new and emerging talent, in the form of Yasuhiro Tomari (Rest. État d'esprit, Okinawa, Japan), the most important of the new generation of Japanese chefs, whose restaurant is located in Miyako, a peaceful subtropical island in the extreme southwest of Japan, the most remote place in the country that can be reached by direct flight from Tokyo. Drawing on his French training (at Joel Robuchon's restaurant), but inspired by local tradition, he is developing a uniquely creative approach that he calls Modern Ryukyu Gastronomy, a reference to the name of the ancient kingdom of Okinawa. Almost all his ingredients come from Miyako or the neighbouring island of Irabu. Instead of looking only to the past, he also uses his imagination to imagine what the cuisine of these islands would be like if Ryukyu had developed as a prosperous nation independent of Japan.