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

THE COOKBOOK
What about booze? Gordon Ramsay swears by red wine to
combat jet lag. Although Chef Nobu — as everyone calls him —
has been credited with popularising the rice-wine saké in the
West as he did sushi in the nineties, I’ve heard that he prefers
tequila. “ No, no, no, I am not an alcoholic,” he says with a laugh.
When he’s celebrating a special occasion with his staff, his
managers will sometimes break out the Mexican spirit. “ But not
every day. Maybe two or three times a year.”
He enthuses about the wine and saké in his restaurants, again
sold under his name, but
says that he now drinks
less. Eating is another
matter. “ I am a chef, so
I have to eat everything;
taste what my chefs make.”
Although arguably a
forerunner of the cleaneating
movement, he has
no time for it. “A lot of
people are vegetarian or
gluten-free because they
want to lose weight and
be healthy, but for me the
way to do that is to eat
everything and exercise.”
His tastes are broad. “ I
like Italian, Chinese, Greek,
but simple cooking,” he
says. “ In London, a long
time ago, I’d go to the River
Café, where I knew the chefs
[Ruth Rogers and Rose
Gray]. Or Giorgio Locatelli,
who’s a close friend.” When
he opened Nobu Park Lane
in the Metropolitan hotel
in 1997, he had a soft spot
for the tapas at El Pirata, a
restaurant behind the hotel.
He used to travel with his
own knife, but now each
outlet of the Nobu Empire
keeps one for him. And a
pair of gym shoes.
His globetrotting habits
are partly to ensure that
every outlet adheres to the
‘Nobu Style’. Innovation is
fine within reason — it has,
after all, enabled him to branch out from restaurants to hotels, spas,
sauces, dried miso and tableware — but a certain Japanese essence
must be preserved. When a new Nobu opens, local ingredients are
used and Matsuhisa is always keen to see what dishes his chefs, of all
nationalities, come up with. “ I never say no, but I try to make it better
as a challenge,” he says. He has, however, outlawed the use of sausage
in a Hawaiian Nobu and replaced the bun in a Wagyu slider with a
tofu cake.
He recently gave The New York Times a tour of the new
sushi bar in his Los Angeles home (he has lived in the US since
the eighties), where he makes food “once or twice a year. When
I make sushi in a restaurant it is a business, but I love to make
sushi, so I want to share my passion with my family.” He jokes to
friends that he has a private chef at home — his wife.
Matsuhisa has been married to Yoko, who helped him to
run the business when he was starting out, for 45 years and they
have two daughters: The elder runs Nobu Tokyo, the younger is a
housewife in Los Angeles and
each has a daughter, one aged
seven and one aged three. “ I go
to Japan once a month and I see
[the other side of] my family
whenever I go back to LA,”
Matsuhisa says, adding that
his absences keep his marriage
fresh. “ But I call or email my
wife two or three times a day.
Communication and trust are
important.”
He was born in the
Saitama province of Japan
in 1949. His father, a lumber
merchant, was often away
from home, and died in an
accident when Matsuhisa
was young. The chef’s desire
to travel was sparked by his
father’s lifestyle — one of his
most powerful childhood
memories is of his father
receding into the distance on
his motorcycle.
Raised mostly by his
grandmother, Matsuhisa
got his first job at 17
as a dishwasher in the
restaurant Matsue-sushi in
Shinjuku, Tokyo. He slowly
worked his way up the
kitchen pecking order, and
shortly after he married
Yoko at the age of 23, he
opened his own sushi bar
in Peru with the backing
of a former customer.
After they fell out over his
insistence on using the best
ingredients, he moved to Argentina, but that didn’t work
out either, and he returned shamefacedly to Japan. Another
former customer set him up in a restaurant in Alaska,
which went well until it burnt down.
“ I almost tried suicide,” he says, making a throat-slitting
motion, “ but even though I lost everything I was healthy,
which is why I woke myself up.” By now, with two daughters to
support, he struck out on his own in Los Angeles, working in
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