A Michelin-starred restaurant in Taipei has launched a new menu of authentic Indigenous Taiwanese cuisine. The dishes are all based on traditional Taitung recipes, and use the best Taitung and Hualien ingredients, from fresh mahi mahi to mountain herbs. Could this be Taiwan’s new-old culinary future?
The chef breaks pieces of dough into the pot, where they simmer with marbled meat. These traditional Indigenous dumplings are about to appear on the menu of a Michelin-star restaurant. Nearby, another chef is cutting open a 2-kilogram mahi mahi. Slices of raw sashimi are rolled up like flower blossoms and bathed in a chili dip that takes two weeks to pickle.
A-yueh
Indigenous restaurant owner
This is quite an unusual way of eating it. You can only find this in Indigenous tribes.
Member of public
It’s not like normal sashimi. It’s a little al dente.
Now you can taste the cuisine of Taiwan’s Indigenous people in the capital, thanks to collaboration between a village restaurant in Taitung and this Taipei Michelin-star eatery. The menu uses fresh ingredients from Hualien and Taitung in its authentic Indigenous dishes, such as shell ginger leaves, pigeon peas, and red quinoa. Every dish tells a story.
Wang Mei-hua
Indigenous restaurant owner
There were no frills back in the day. We just fried up some pig fat, boiled the wheat dumplings in glutinous rice wine, and added the garlic chives we grew ourselves.
Lai Ying-ju
Hotel marketing and PR manager
Through this exchange, we hope we can show everyone there are more possibilities in local and sustainable food. Many ingredients here are taken from extending the local Taitung ingredients and getting creative with them.
As one authentic dish after another land on the table in front of you, the cultural history of Taiwan’s Indigenous people is also in the spotlight.
