For someone who grew up close to having guests come and stay at his father’s locally renowned accommodation in the city of Niigata, Japan – which then led him become good acquaintances with the Founder of Fuji Rock Festival, being in the hospitality industry does not feel like work for Shota Kanazawa. We cracked open cold, peachy Japanese craft beers that late afternoon in the middle of Ubud while we converse about Sayan House and the great philosophy behind Plan Do See’s approach to hospitality.
Gilmour Life (GL): Hello, Shota, thanks for having us here. To start things off, how are things here in Sayan House? How do you guys stay afloat with the whole Covid-19 situation?
Shota (S): Sure. You know… we can’t really complain, face the issue, we just do what we can do. We are losing cash – kinda bleeding as for cashflow, but we are kinda optimistic at the same time. So many restaurants are shutting down, but luckily we still have guests coming in every day although it’s not as busy as before. Just gotta keep going until everything comes back to normal.
GL: We can only imagine how hard it is to keep going, because we’ve rode past Ubud central the other day and most of the places are now closed. Only the big brands survive, what do you think about that?
S: Yeah, if this crazy moment is going to continue for the next two years, for example, I think there will be less and less restaurants in Ubud. So it’s a good opportunity to reflect, I mean… I want everyone to survive but most of them fire employees, or cut their salary… we don’t do that here. We will keep investing (in the people), because we believe after Covid-19, we’ll bounce back.
I also told everyone working here that this is a good chance. Bali is quite unique, especially in restaurants and food industry. Business owners think at least if you have a location and you’re open, it’s easy for customers to come to you, and that’s why it’s a highly competitive business. But I haven’t seen high quality restaurants so much. With what’s happening, we get to see, which ones have the quality, and which do not.
People try to survive now, but it will be tougher after Covid-19. Guests will seek for more quality, so businesses that are focused on high quality strive, while the ones that do not offer good value will suffer. Only the good ones will survive post-pandemic.
GL: Is this how you implement Omotenashi in the company? From your website we learned that the concept is a way to treat people with the highest level of respect, how does this reflect in the current situation?
S: As an example, let’s look at Four Seasons, our next door neighbor. If I have a hotel like it, I can’t keep 300 employees working daily with no operation. So I quite understand the big hotels do all kinds of things. But in my opinion, human resources are the biggest asset in hospitality.
All my staff are my biggest asset in this business. So I believe if you let them go now and then hire new ones after the Covid-19, it’s a completely different quality of people… and service. Just like treating other assets, you try so hard to keep the place, so it’s only logical for you to keep the people too.
GL: That is one admirable point of view and not everyone has the guts or privilege to do so. Shota, how did you get into the hospitality industry in the first place? How did you meet and eventually become a part of Plan Do See, to now being the Creative Director of Sayan House?
S: My father runs a small hotel in a ski resort, so I kinda grew up there. I dreamed of owning a hotel when I was 13 or 14, and since then I have always been into restaurants, hotels, and traveling. When I went to study abroad in the US, I did an internship at a hotel.
I eventually found Plan Do See and was very impressed by the founder – he’s super cool, I’ve never met that kind of person before. I was impressed by the vision, I liked it and the rest was history.
GL: Do you have role models – who do you look up to in the hospitality/creative industry?
S: CEO of Plan Do See definitely, but yeah so many actually. I do have so much respect for so many industry players. I get inspired by so many people. Lucky I was born in Japan, they have so many good examples, and I get to bring those ideas to Bali which no one does in this country, which is good.
You should know though, I’m not taking over Bali. We want to be the best hospitality company for and by Indonesians, I’m just here laying out the structure, but after that it’s on every Indonesian. I am Japanese but I live in Indonesia so I wanna make the hospitality industry better, while introducing the good values of omotenashi. My goal has to be done by the locals. I don’t think the government would hear from a Japanese, but they’ll surely hear from the locals.
Doing hospitality business should be controlled by the local authenticity.
GL: Allow us to take you back to reminisce about the good ol’ days. So you joined Plan Do See, and after that you moved here to Bali?
S: Sayan House opened in November 2014. At the moment it was disastrous, we had five Japanese staff who didn’t know the business here. No one speaks English, and this street (Jl. Sayan), no one walks by. In the beginning, the land owner said we can’t have a name sign put on the streets. There were no tips to let the people know that we exist here. So every day we only have two guests, sometimes one, but somehow people keep coming.
Every day we’re struggling, so the company decides someone has to take over the place. I have never been to Bali before, I’m more into European countries and didn’t know much about Southeast Asia but I just know I should take this opportunity, so I decided to come. The first one or two years it was still very tough, still very few guests.
GL: So Sayan House stayed with no sign upfront for two years. Can’t remember when Google Maps started to become our essentials, but even when with it you can still pass by the place. The entrance is so narrow, like entering a jungle, towards a lush, hidden gem.
Was it always Japanese x Latin cuisine for the concept of the food here from the start? How did the idea come up?
S: It started out as Indonesian fusion, which is what every other restaurant here does. I have to do something else. I’m Japanese so I have connections to Japanese chefs, but if it’s a full classic Japanese restaurant with this Balinese atmosphere, it doesn’t match. So I just came up with the idea of Japanese x Latin, named Nikkei food.
GL: In this space you have the restaurant area and the sunset bar, how do you treat all the different scenes? People can dine here, and sip a cocktail while watching the sunset. How do you combine the two elements?
S: For me personally, the most important part of my restaurant experience is to drink something. Whenever I travel, drinking at a bar becomes my go-to. When people come to this place, I believe they not only want to drink, but also want to see and enjoy the view. We have to invite more people, whatever their intention is, I feel like I have to make something so that people can come even if they don’t order anything.
Since drinking at the bar is an important experience for me, the place eventually becomes the go-to for people from Four Seasons, Kamandalu, Ritz Carlton, our next door neighbors, they know how to enjoy the time at the restaurant – this is the place to go to.
GL: You went from having very few guests to having people come from the big hotels, what was the process like – were there any specific marketing strategy or partnerships that was essential to the development of Sayan House?
S: We didn’t do marketing & PR stuff. We just focus on the quality of the service and food. People come to Sayan House because they know of Sayan House, it’s not just passers-by. We have to make a big reputation and live by it, people to people.
GL: From what you explained, it’s down to the value and the experience. How far does Sayan House contribute to the local society?
S: I’m not a chef so I invite professional Japanese chefs every year from Plan Do See. It’s good for them, the people working in Japan don’t even know Bali. But they know the quality, so I invite them to stay here for 2 weeks every year where they check the quality of our suppliers, and they exchange cooking tips with our local chefs here.
I think one of the biggest spending here is how we create a good customer experience. Twice or three times every month, staffs dress up and eat here. Even the dish washers and gardeners, they eat and drink here, whatever they want. They also go out to Four Seasons, Potato Head, or even some managers took them to Japan, Bangkok, Hanoi, etc. They should know what is good out there in order to serve good. I think that’s what Plan Do See does that others may not.
GL: Again and again, it’s about people’s development and exchange of cultures, including the yearly visit from Japanese chefs to improve the quality of Sayan House in Bali.
S: You cannot teach sushi to some Balinese who have never eaten sushi before. So it’s very important to let them experience first, in order to provide experience to other people. That’s what happens everywhere in Japanese restaurants in Indonesia, they just do what they are taught from some Japanese chef, they never have it by themselves.
The experience is what our employees here use as motivation, it’s what becomes the drive. They want to work here and do the service.Our employees are encouraged to go out, see the wine list, all those things that Balinese aren’t so used to. There’s a huge difference here, Japanese are used to going out, Balinese are not so much.
Everyone can do it, but it’s most important to know the reason why. You can teach people something easily, but they don’t understand why they have to do it.
GL: What’s next for Sayan House?
S: Sayan House is gonna be Sayan House, I’m building the villa now, it’s almost done. It will be 4 private villas, IDR 15 million per night with a sauna and pool. And we’ll have another building – 50-room boutique hotel with Ubud view, onsen, and sauna. Every hotel in Ubud is the same, I respect what they do, but it’s the same. I need different experience, but still adjusting to the environment. I don’t wanna destroy something just because I want to build something.
GL: What’s the story behind From Where I Stand?
S: When I was working in Japan, we had a project to make a boutique at a hotel which then became From Where I Stand. They previously had a kiosk, a small store, but they sell bad quality souvenirs, with no idea who’s gonna buy that kind of stuff. Every hotel has that kind of store.
We should have a great boutique where people wanna go to shop. That’s the idea behind making an aesthetic shop in the hotel and the boutique should be representing the areas or the places of where they’re sourced from. If you’re traveling to Tokyo, NY, or wherever, you should be able to find a shop that sells stuff representing your whereabouts.
Everywhere you go in Bali, they have the same souvenirs. So many good brands selling good stuff but it’s so hard to find it. But here at Sayan House, everyday we invite a good number of customers. If they can see whatever high quality stuff that we sell here, that’s good for local artists, and local people. That’s the plan.
GL: One last question, could you tell us about your childhood? Tell us any memorable moments when you were growing up.
S: When I was very young, I grew up in a ski resort in Niigata, that’s the area of the Fuji Rock Festival.
They started when I was in junior high or something. The first time they started in Shizuoka city, right next to Fujiyama, Fuji mountain. But the event was destroying the environment, so they have to move it and come to my hometown, Niigata. The founder of Fuji Rock, Masahiro Hidaka, always stays in my hotel, in my house.
Hidaka-san does not like big hotels, so he comes to my place. It was quite an experience, I got to work around artists and musicians environments, saw a whole bunch of drugs and drinking scenes, cleaned up their rooms… It was quite an experience.
From Hidaka-san my eyes were opened, he said I have to know music. He opened up access too, I even got a chance to meet Bjork. That’s how it started, from childhood, I started having interest in hospitality, hotels, and so on.
There was this one time where he and my father were having breakfast together, two young guys approached him telling him how awesome the Fuji Rock was. Out of nowhere Hidaka-san smacked those two heads together because to him, they were just telling him fake compliments and pretending to be a fan.
I guess as you have more and more experience, you get to a point where you’re cool enough to spot a bunch of kiss asses. That event was something I’ll never forget. Hidaka-san inspires me so much.
