Italian cuisine.
1. What inspired you to pursue cooking, and how did you develop a special interest in Italian and Japanese cuisines?
I don't think I became a chef because I loved cooking. I became a chef because I was curious about food.
There is a difference. Cooking is something you learn. Curiosity is what makes you question everything you learn.
Italian and Japanese cuisines fascinated me because they are incredibly different, yet their philosophies are surprisingly similar. An Italian grandmother might spend hours making the perfect tomato sauce. A Japanese sushi master might spend years perfecting rice. Neither is trying to impress you with twenty ingredients.
They're trying to make a few ingredients taste extraordinary. That simplicity attracted me. And somewhere between Italian generosity and Japanese precision, I began discovering my own cooking identity.
2. When you create a new dish, what comes first, an ingredient, a flavour, a memory or an idea?
Usually, a question.
What happens if I treat an Italian ingredient with Japanese technique? What if something traditionally served hot tastes more interesting cold? What if a familiar ingredient has another personality we haven't discovered?
I don't always begin with a recipe or even a clear picture of the finished dish. Sometimes it starts with something as ordinary as corn, mushrooms or a tomato. The interesting part is not finding expensive ingredients. It's finding something interesting to say with ordinary ones.
Anyone can make a dish luxurious with truffles. Making someone remember a simple mushroom is a different challenge.
3. Both Italian and Japanese cuisines place considerable emphasis on ingredient quality. How do you select ingredients and bring out their best qualities when creating a dish?
I believe chefs sometimes complicate ingredients because they don't trust them enough.
If a tomato is beautiful, why hide it under five sauces? If a fish is fresh, why overwhelm it with seasoning?
For me, ingredient selection begins with understanding its natural character: sweetness, acidity, texture, aroma and seasonality.
Japanese cooking taught me restraint. Italian cooking taught me warmth and generosity. When you bring those two philosophies together, you learn something important.
Good cooking isn't about how much you add. It's about knowing what to leave out.
Of course, consistency matters in a professional kitchen. A beautiful ingredient means very little if the guest receives a different experience every time.
4. Can you share an instance when a cooking experiment failed or took an unexpected turn but ultimately taught you something valuable about your craft?
Some of my most useful lessons have come from dishes that looked excellent on paper and tasted completely wrong on the plate.
When you combine Italian and Japanese flavours, it's very easy to become carried away. Miso, cheese, truffle, chilli, citrus - individually, they can all be wonderful.
But put too many strong personalities together, and suddenly nobody is listening to anybody.
I've learned that a dish doesn't become creative simply because the ingredients are unusual. Sometimes the smartest decision is removing the ingredient you were most excited about.
A failed experiment doesn't bother me. Serving a dish without understanding why it works would bother me much more.
5. How do you balance following a recipe with trusting your instincts and experimenting with flavours?
A recipe is important. Particularly in a professional kitchen, where consistency is everything.
But I don't believe a recipe should become a prison.
Think about it. Two tomatoes from the same supplier can have different acidity. Fish changes with season and freshness. Even the same ingredient behaves differently depending on temperature and technique.
So how can we expect every ingredient to respond to exactly the same instructions?
A recipe gives my team a foundation. Experience tells us when something needs adjustment. And creativity helps us discover something new.
I follow recipes to maintain standards. I trust my instincts to create them.
But experimentation must happen before service, not at the expense of a paying guest.
6. How do you decide whether an unusual flavour combination deserves a place on the menu?
I ask myself three questions. Does it taste good? Does it make sense? And most importantly, would someone want to order it again?
As chefs, we sometimes become obsessed with making food that other chefs will admire. But restaurants aren't built for chefs. They're built for guests.
A dish might look extraordinary on Instagram, use an ingredient nobody can pronounce and involve seven complicated techniques. But if the guest doesn't enjoy eating it, what have we achieved?
I have to think beyond creativity. I consider consistency, guest expectations, kitchen execution and whether the dish belongs to the restaurant's identity.
A creative dish gets attention. A delicious dish gets reordered. And a memorable dish brings people back.
That's the difference.
7. What is one principle you follow in the kitchen that you would never compromise on, regardless of the dish you're preparing?
Respect.
Respect for the ingredient, the guest and the people cooking beside you.
We talk a lot about creativity, Michelin stars, expensive ingredients and beautiful plating. But none of that matters if your kitchen doesn't understand discipline, hygiene and consistency.
I've always believed that a chef's real character isn't visible when they're plating a beautiful dish for a photograph.
It's visible during a busy Saturday dinner, when orders are coming in, the team is under pressure and every guest still deserves the same quality. That's where professionalism begins.
Luxury isn't always caviar or truffle. Sometimes luxury is simply receiving exactly what you were promised, every single time.
And that is something I will never compromise on.
