Tropicana Magazine Jan-Feb 2018 #116: A Start From The Heart

THE COOKBOOK
NobuA BYWORD
Nobu has an empire of nearly 40 restaurants and hotels with film
star, Robert De Niro. Meet the man whose name and skills have
made him a force to be reckoned with in Japanese cuisine.
FOR JAPANESE
CUISINE
WORDS BY NICK CURTIS/THE TIMES/THE INTERVIEW PEOPLEI
meet the world’s best-known Japanese chef, Nobu Matsuhisa, during his
"Do I ever argue with
Robert De Niro? Yes, it’s
like a marriage."
fleeting visit to Britain amid a typically jet-setting week. A compact, genial
figure with cropped grey hair and smooth burnished skin, the 68-year-old
has a punishing schedule supervising the global empire that he runs with his
business partner Robert De Niro. It encompasses more than 30 restaurants and
seven hotels serving a modern version of Japanese cuisine and hospitality to the rich
and famous from Los Angeles to London, Beijing to Budapest, and Kuala Lumpur
to Qatar. Some of the restaurants bear the chef’s surname, including the flagship he
opened in 1987 in LA, but it’s as Nobu that he has become a one-man brand.
“ I travel 10 months of the year,” he says. “ This week I went back to LA for one
day, now London, then Moscow. They are going to send us on a private jet. This is a
good deal.” He sounds ridiculously pleased, like a simple sushi chef whose pursuit of
perfection has paid off. Which, deep down, is possibly what he still is.
From the outside, Nobu Hotel Shoreditch in east London looks like a spacebattleship,
its roof terraces bristling like gun turrets, but inside, its all understated
calm with blond wood predominating in the restaurant and spa. Matsuhisa’s suite
has subdued lighting and leather furniture. At one point the lights mysteriously
dim. “ Maybe time’s up,” he says.
His visit is to mark the launch of a new spa and wellness centre at the hotel. Its
signature treatment, Nobu Zen, will set visitors back up to £245. Matsuhisa, who
has just put the new facility to the test, sweats the details of his own regimen. “After
a flight, the body, the muscles, are tight, tired, so I do a lot of exercise — treadmill,
swimming if there is a pool. After the gym, it’s good to have a massage. I had a shiatsu
massage in the spa. Now I’d like to go to bed for a couple of hours, but they’re keeping
me working.”
A pile of cookbooks on the coffee table waits for his signature. After our chat,
he is hosting dinner in Shoreditch for about a hundred people who have paid a tidy
sum for the pleasure; the next night he is marking the 20th anniversary of his British
flagship, Nobu Park Lane, with a party. There are eight more Nobu hotels in the
pipeline in locations as diverse as Toronto, Riyadh, Sao Paulo and Bahrain, and more
restaurants to come. “ Jet lag is tough,” he says. “ I used to take a sleeping pill, but I
don’t take any drugs any more.”
TM | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018
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