Japanese-style brunch set for Mother’s Day

Published 1:30 am Thursday, May 7, 2026

QUILCENE — Kids Table will prepare a multi-course Japanese-style brunch on Mother’s Day at the Quilcene Lantern.

Married couple Jesse and Haley Jane Fukumoto have been presenting their take on fine dining without the associated stuffiness for 10 years now. Sunday will mark their first time doing brunch, but breakfast is well-tread ground for the Seattleites recently turned Vashon Island residents.

“(Japanese breakfast is) very savory,” Jesse said. “It’s usually centered around a bowl of rice, a bowl of miso soup and then a smattering of side dishes. Sometimes you might have salted fish or pickled vegetables or fresh vegetables or other pickles.”

Typically, the Japanese-influenced meals, often dinners, are paired with wine. Haley Jane is a winemaker by profession, something Jesse has seasonally joined her in during recent years.

The Lantern will serve drinks for the event, “Miso and Mom-osas,” which costs $65 and includes eight courses.

Kids younger than 12 will cost $20 and will be served from a different menu.

The meal will include a rolled omelette and butter radishes, smoked salmon on shokupan, miso soup, brassicas and strawberries, onigiri with two fillings, tsukudani — kelp on turnips, Japanese hollandaise on asparagus with katsuobushi and tsukemono; a variety of pickles.

Tickets can be purchased at tinyurl.com/bdh4vty9.

Seatings will take place at 10:30 a.m. and at noon. The event also will include live solo piano from Connor Forsyth.

At the core of the Fukumotos’ approach is the importance of incorporating locally sourced ingredients. Early in the project, they made relationships with regional farmers, who became their suppliers and hosted events on their farms.

“Having a local food culture has always been really interesting and really fun for us,” Haley Jane said.

Bringing a playfulness to shared meals is centrally important. Haley Jane said the meals should be a celebration. The pop-up format, which sees the couple putting on four to 10 events annually, allows for conceptual flexibility. Kids Table has never served the same menu twice, and they feel free to try new and even ill-advised things, Jesse said.

In 2024, they did a pop-up dinner at the Lantern. People camped and ate Japanese breakfast the following morning.

What started as a funny idea became a reality when the couple baked sourdough bread in the shape of crabs, hanging them from the ceiling of the historic barn with bent forks and spoons.

The bread was served with crab-brain butter, Jesse said.

“It’s not technically the brain,” Haley Jane corrected. “It’s called tomalley.”

The tomalley is the hepatopancreas — an organ that functions as both the liver and the pancreas. It stores fats and nutrients and is known for its flavor.

When the couple started Kids Table about 10 years ago, it was out of a passion for fine dining and wine, along with the realization that opening a restaurant wasn’t likely in the cards.

Kids Table was never approached with business success in mind, Haley Jane said. It was about having a place to play with food, explore and bring creativity to fine dining.

“We were fairly new on the scene and we felt like, ‘OK, we’re just the young guys on the block and this is our spastic expression of our understanding of food and wine, and we’re having a lot of fun,’” Jesse said. “We took ourselves kind of seriously, but were trying to set a tone that this wasn’t a strictly serious endeavor.”

Early events took place in their Seattle apartment, then a friend’s bakery, before they branched out to other venues, like farms and bars.

Jesse had been working in Japanese restaurants in Seattle when they started. He said the project incorporates Japanese techniques into 90 percent of their dishes.

“(Once) we made noodles with green tea, and then we seasoned it with pickled plums and nori seaweed, which is Western appearing, but it’s all the exact same flavors from a classic Japanese dish called ochazuke,” Jesse said.

Jesse and Willem de Koch, one of the Lantern’s owners, knew each other growing up in West Seattle, Jesse said.

De Koch called Jesse and Haley Jane true artists.

“I’m always astounded by their creativity and inventiveness,” he said. “They make high-quality, handmade, delicious food accessible to everyone.”

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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@peninsuladailynews.com.