Chapet -- Not a trace of bitterness from the spinach leaf's tip to its light, fragrant stem. Top chef Eric Briffard wouldn't dream of cooking these crisp shoots, sourced for a small fortune from his treasured Japanese vegetable farmer.

Asafumi Yamashita, a former boxer and semi-professional golf player, lives half a world away from his native Japan, near Les Mureaux in Paris' far western suburbs, where he used to tend bonsai trees for a living.

Until one day he was robbed and decided to become a vegetable farmer -- learning the trade from scratch.

"At first I sold my vegetables to Paris' Japanese restaurants, but I found their standards weren't high enough," he told AFP, adding without a flinch: "You know, if a Japanese chef leaves Japan, it means his career has been a failure."

Yamashita grows around 50 varieties of vegetable, all of them Japanese -- "even the tomatoes" -- on a plot almost 3,000 square metres (32,000 square feet) in size, half of it covered with greenhouses.

"What I'm aiming for is not rarity -- it's quality," he said as he chopped off slices of kabu turnip with a machete, handing them over to taste.

Crunchy and juicy as an apple, firm yet tender, sweet with a hint of mustard at the finish. Amazing. Yamashita can deliver at most 120 pieces per week.

"This is a guy who will tear out a bunch of corn cobs so that the ones that are left can grow better," said Briffard, who holds two Michelin stars for his kitchen at the Georges V luxury hotel in Paris.

Passionate about Japan, and with roots of his own in the French rural world, Briffard has worked with Yamashita for years and often travels out from the capital for a walk around his gardens.

"It is amazing how much quality is hidden here, behind his little house lost in the countryside, the density and depth and concentration of his vegetables," Briffard said. "His sweet potatoes are a little transparent, and his tomatoes are smooth to the touch like peaches."

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