It’s a common fantasy: Accidentally locked in a bakery, forgotten overnight, we quickly eat everything in sight and fall into a sugary, carb-filled dream of sweet-spun bliss. Sequestered away where nobody will find us until morning, we wake from time to time and continue to eat cakes until we sleep again. Short of that happening in this lifetime, we frequently daydream of walking the aisles of bakeries, latte in hand as we pull pain au chocolat and sticky buns from racks, consuming everything in a hurried rush before we’re asked to leave.

Several years ago, when the Michelin Guide decided to swoop into Japan and rate its cuisine, restaurateurs were slightly shell-shocked to learn that Japan came away with almost as many highly regarded establishments as France. (And in fact, Tokyo wound up with two more three-star restaurants than Paris.) Then, in 2013, UNESCO put washoku (Japanese cuisine) on its Intangible Cultural Heritage List, alongside such icons as the Argentine tango, Turkish coffee and falconry.