Page 2 - Dining Out - July 4, 2021

Restaurant Insider with Anne Lee
ANNE LEE speaks with
Iron chef and Morimoto Asia Waikiki founder MASAHARU MORIMOTO
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Photos by
RICKY RIDELA
When I spoke with the OG Iron Chef, Masaharu Morimoto (aka Chef Morimoto), everything had a sense of place: how he chose New York as his home, how he picked his restaurant locations, and how his path led him to be- come one of the most rec- ognized chefs in the world. He is charming and funny — and he can sing! Oh, and he’s still friendly with Bobby Flay.
AL: When did you come to this country?
MM: 1985. I used to play baseball in Japan. My dream was to play for a profession- al baseball team, one was for a franchise called the Hi- roshima Cubs. I was drafted to play in high school.
AL: How did you become a chef?
MM: As much as I wanted to play baseball, I also wanted to be a sushi chef. Having a shoulder injury paved my way to the restaurant world, starting from a busboy, run- ner, server, basically learn- ing how to do everything in the kitchen.
In the late ’70s and ear-
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Nicole Monton
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ly ’80s, there was a sushi boom, which brought me to LA for the Olympics. After that, I had the opportunity to go to Japan, Korea, Anchor- age and New York, and the most affordable route was New York City.
After my first year, I thought I could take this talent to other places where there was a sushi boom, in- cluding the West Coast and Hawaii. Or, I could stay five years in New York and bring money back to Japan. The second year, 1985, Japan’s currency took an opposite turn and the American dol- lar exceeded the Japanese yen. It did not make financial sense to go back to Japan. In 1986, I purchased a condo in New York and made it my home.
AL: How did Iron Chef happen?
MM: In 1994 in Japan, chef Rokusaburo Michiba was the first generation Iron Chef Japan. As the executive chef at Nobu, I was asked to be on Food TV, the origi- nal broadcasting company from Japan that owned the copyright. It then went to the Food Network, and now Netflix.
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Anne Lee
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Dining Out
/ July 4-10, 2021