Yuichiro Watanabe

Born in Chiba Prefecture in 1967. As a child he never tired of leafing through the cookbooks his mother collected, and sat spellbound before cooking shows on television.

He wanted to make, with his own hands, the things he longed to eat. That longing for the white chef’s jacket simply became the road he took. After graduating from the Tsuji Culinary Institute, he crossed to the school’s campus in France.

As a student in France, he walked into one restaurant in Paris that would decide the rest of his life: Jamin, the legend Joël Robuchon opened in 1981 and carried to three Michelin stars in just three years.

This was the man he wanted to cook for. Back in Japan, he sharpened his skills at Le Maestro Paul Bocuse Tokyo, and in 1994 joined the opening team of Château Restaurant Taillevent-Robuchon in Ebisu.

He rose through sous-chef and chef of the café, and in December 2004 was named executive chef of Château Restaurant Joël Robuchon. Whenever Robuchon came to Japan, Watanabe was always at his side. He is the Japanese chef who inherited the craft and philosophy of the “Chef of the Century” from closer than anyone.

As executive chef, he held three Michelin stars for nine years — days spent leading one of the finest kitchens in the world, where not a single plate was allowed to fall short.

One day, tasting a plate of his, Robuchon told him: “Donne-moi la recette” — give me the recipe. It was the moment the Chef of the Century acknowledged his protégé’s cooking.

In 2015, when he raised the subject of leaving, he is said to have told his mentor three things: that he had spent twenty-one years here, that he had kept the stars, and that he wanted a new challenge. The departure of the Robuchon group’s executive chef sent a ripple of surprise through the culinary world.

In July 2016, in Komagata, Asakusa, overlooking the Sumida River, he opened Nabeno-Ism. The name joins “Nabe,” the nickname he has long answered to in the kitchen, with “ism.”

Unshakeable French technique, layered with the food culture of old Edo and the ingredients of Japan. One dish inspired by a recipe of his mentor’s — a kombu dashi jelly with sobagaki and caviar — has become the signature that captures that philosophy.

Just four months after opening came a Michelin star; then, in the Michelin Guide Tokyo 2019, a second. What he had inherited from his mentor had come to fruition as the cuisine of a Japanese chef.

For seventeen years he has taught every year at the Tsuji Culinary Institute schools, handing the craft and philosophy he inherited from Robuchon to the next generation.