Tempura’s story begins with a misheard word: the Latin phrase quatuor tempora, used by sixteenth-century Portuguese missionaries for their meatless days, stayed behind in Japan as the name of the frying itself. The technique entered through Nagasaki and turned into the people’s food on the streets of Edo; it was eaten standing, from bamboo skewers, at traveling stalls. For fear of fire, there were periods when frying it indoors was forbidden outright.

Four hundred years later, a whole family lives under that technique’s roof. The Tempura Set is that family’s anthology at our counter: a selection of our hot side, in thirty-two pieces. The sweetness of shrimp, the tenderness of chicken, the fatty depth of salmon; all inside the same golden armor, none resembling another. That is the pleasure of an anthology: different poems by the same poet.

The rules are the same for every piece: the batter ice-cold, the oil clean and scalding, the timing a matter of seconds, the serving immediate.

For those who keep their distance from hot sushi, this board is not an attempt at persuasion but an open invitation. Tempura opens the door; the palate settles the rest.