In an intimate 20-seater Italian-style restaurant in Akasaka, Sabasu is an authentic gem with a speciality worth traveling for, its naturally-leavened pizza, natural wine and fresh ingredients sourced from Japan’s small-scale farmers. 

Made by owner-operator Luke Savas, the Greek Cypriot-Australian is passionate about naturally-made dough, something his guests at Sabasu travel wide and far for.

Together with his partner and Sommelier Stephanie Jacob, Savas has crafted a restaurant in Tokyo which feels original yet distinctly Italian with Mediterranean hospitality. From the natural wine to the quality of ingredients sourced from the best farmers in Japan, Sabasu is a delight to visit for lunch or dinner, where Savas and his team inspire with their modest and carefully curated approach.

Just like its naturally-made pizza, the Sabasu wine list features the best natural winemakers from across the world, thanks to globe-trotting Sommelier Stephanie, who is also a winemaker herself. Previously a wine buyer (for Sometimes Always and restaurant Supernormal Melbourne), Stephanie has worked with some of the best winemakers in Australia, this month continuing her practical learnings with a winemaker in Sicily, Italy.

We spoke to Luke and Stephanie about their work, philosophy and why natural is always best.

Can you tell us more about your Leavened Pizza process?

LS: Our pizza dough only contains flour, water, and salt, the yeast is all naturally occurring, from our sourdough starter, which came over with me from Australia. Using Japanese flour from Hokkaido, and Shikoku, we pre ferment a large portion of our dough, before mixing and then proofing the dough balls for a further day or so.

I’ve been working with leavened dough for 5 years now, but only recently for Sabasu started working more with whole-wheat flour and a higher hydration. Big puffy crust, and chewy dough is the desired result. A large amount of our dough is pre-fermented for 18 hours, and after mixing it ferments for another 12-24 hours. It’s a long slow process but it develops so much more flavour, and that mochi-mochi texture I love.

The experience at Sabasu is so welcoming and unpretentious, was this your intention when you set out to begin your restaurant?

LS: It more or less happened this way itself. Sabasu was originally a Ryotei (traditional Japanese restaurant) and then a hostel (which I actually stayed at during my previous travels to Japan), so it has a very warm and soft feeling already. Hospitality has been within these walls from its very beginning.

What were your main philosophies driving your approach to the restaurant?

LS: Everything made and produced in house wherever possible. Having a space where anybody and everybody feels welcome, as Tokyo is such a busy city with locals, local tourists, expats, and foreign travellers. [Our approach is to] show a little bit of Australian style and service.

Are there any key learnings you wish you would have known before starting the restaurant which you know now?

LS: Start small, expand your menu as your business grows… Japan is such a specialist country, with many stores focusing on one particular item or style of cooking. So sticking to where your passions lie, and improving it day by day is appreciated here.
Study more Japanese!!! In all seriousness though, having the ability to converse with customers, and suppliers makes all the difference in building relationships.

Using the best quality ingredients in Japan, can you tell us about which farmers you work with, how you do your sourcing? Is your approach to work with farmers with the least pesticides?

LS: When I first moved over to Tokyo, I met a lot of producers and chefs at/through Aoyama Farmers Market. Ome farm in particular is a great producer located just outside of Tokyo. Also via the farmers market, we met our black garlic supplier, taneko garlic farm from Aomori. Tokyo cheese stand are a cheese maker located in Shibuya-Ku, who make fantastic burrata, and mozzarella.

It’s taken quite a lot of time to build a network of producers and growers, many of them very small and independent. It gives us the opportunity to work with hyper seasonal produce and allow frequent menu changes.

What are your plans for Sabasu now and into the future? 

LS: Pizza comes first, so continuing our commitment to improving our product, and trying new flours, and ingredients from suppliers, as we establish ourselves in Tokyo. We are aiming to grow the team, and potentially take Sabasu to other prefectures in Japan, whether that’s a pop up or a semi permanent situation. We would love to bring Sabasu back to Australia in the future if it ever became an option for us. 

Tell us more about what working as the restaurant’s Somm entails, how do you approach your work curating and ordering the best wines for Sabasu?

SJ: The core approach to the list at Sabasu is of course, natural wines only. Low to no sulphur added, organically grown, from small-scale wine growers that are hands on in the field. This is an approach to wine that I really love and that also ties in with Luke’s philosophy of naturally fermented pizza. From there I am researching and trying out new producers, going to wine bars around Tokyo to see what’s out there. It’s so different to wine buying in Australia, there are so many more wines that reach Tokyo in comparison to cities in Aus.

It’s continuous learning and exploring, and I’m lucky to have some great distributors to work with that have helped me with a lot of wine sourcing since the beginning. There are still a lot of my favourite organic and biodynamic small producers I will always endeavour to list, but I have pushed myself to keep sourcing new wines rather than stick to old faithfuls and favourites. This has kept it fun and exciting for everyone at Sabasu I think, both staff and customers.

What are the wine-makers you are currently pouring at Sabasu?

SJ: A lot of French wines at the moment. I am particularly loving this amazing Sauvignon Blanc from Touraine (Vincent Ricard ‘Le Petiot’) that tastes of the freshest, juiciest grapefruit. It is one of the best value natural wines I have come across this year.

I am also really excited to be able to pour Jean Foillard Beaujolais for less than 2000yen/glass! This wine is not exported to Australia so I had never seen it before. I visited the estate in 2018 and tasted the wines with Alex, son of Jean who manages the cellar. The wines are iconic for good reason, they’re delicious, and they are farmed with a lot of love.

What encourages you to order them for the restaurant, any specific decisions that sway your choice?

SJ:  I think for a by the glass range the most important thing is that there’s something for everyone to enjoy, and that the wines are interesting but accessible at the same time, so a variety of price, region and style.

But I also think wines by the glass, which we sell more than bottles most of the time, should be fun and fresh, easy to drink wines. Pizza is fun and the wines on pour should be too.

With so many international and natural wines on your list, what are the challenges or benefits of ordering these?

SJ: The challenge of sourcing international natural wines is that natural wines generally don’t contain much preservative (sulphur) and that means that they are susceptible to change in the bottle when Not stored at a consistent temperature, so often we see these “Internatties” well renowned worldwide, but by the time they reach us from halfway across the world, they’re not really the same wine as when you buy it direct from the producer.

That’s why it’s really important to have a good relationship with your suppliers and knowing that they are shipping in temperature controlled shipping containers at ideal times, and storing the wines correctly so that when the Wine reaches us as close as it can be how it would be drinking it in the place that is from.

The benefits of looking at wines from all over the world is that they educate you and inspire you. I think it’s always really important to be tasting and offering wines from various regions to stay inspired and keep learning what is possible in the world of wine-growing.

As an avid wine-maker yourself, learning in both Australia, Japan and soon Sicily, Italy, how important is getting first-hand experience in the vineyards to the work you do here at Sabasu? And has this also inspired your push for more natural wine that uses organically-farmed grapes and zero to minimal sulphites?

SJ: Seeing and understanding fruit quality by working in the vineyard through to winery during harvest really helps to understand just how important the farming aspect is to the quality of wine. It’s near impossible to make a delicious wine from bad grapes if you don’t want to add a bunch of other ingredients to make it taste good. So what happens in the vineyard is so important. The best wines I’ve tasted are from wine-growers who really understand their vineyard, spend time walking the vines and staying in touch with the vines this way.

Understanding seasons for different regions is so helpful for wine buying and sourcing. Especially for natural wine. When you’re not using chemicals in the vineyard, you are far more subject to seasonality. Was there rain during the growing season? Maybe that dry-grown vineyard might not produce the best wine in a hot year, so go with something different this time. Or frost hit a region particularly hard? The good wines will likely be scarce for that year and possibly more expensive so might best to look for a similar style of wine from a different region.

Working in vineyard and wineries has definitely inspired the push for organic and biodynamic wines from small wine growers. I find these wines really inspiring because I know just how much hard work has gone into making them, without the use of chemicals and fining agents and filtering, you really are at the mercy of Mother Nature so much more.

Sabasu
6 chome 13-5 Akasaka, Minato 
Tokyo, 107-0052

Text: Editorial Director Monique Kawecki
Images: As credited