One of Japan’s top chefs, Yoshihiro Narisawa presents his innovative Satoyama Cuisine, which highlights, among other ingredients and flavors, the seasonal riches of Japanese produce. Chef Narisawa has been recognized for his leadership on sustainability, which is at the heart of his reverence for nature in the restaurant. In 2013, he received the World’s 50 Best Restaurant Sustainable Restaurant Award.

As a young man, in 1988, Yoshihiro Narisawa began his training, blazing a Michelin-starred trail through Europe under iconic chefs like Paul Bocuse and Joël Robuchon. After nine years of technique polishing and total immersion, Narisawa was ready to return home and imbue all he had learned into a new landscape for Japanese cuisine. Embracing both his identity and the identity of Japanese cuisine, Narisawa restaurant blends the spirit of nouvelle cuisine and the technical precision Narisawa cultivated in Europe with a rhythmic, integrated sense of the seasons. The result has not only garnered well-deserved international attention, but it’s done what Narisawa set out to do—push Japanese cuisine into its next evolution.

His approach
I call my cuisine “Innovative Satoyama Cuisine.” The Satoyama is the space between the sea and the mountains where people and nature live together. For the Japanese, humankind was always part of nature. The culture of Satoyama is using only what is needed from nature effectively while tending it appropriately, and at the same time sustaining a healthy environment. The leaves of trees absorb carbon dioxide and generate oxygen—a process known as photosynthesis, which is essential for life on this planet, just as much as water. The roots of trees filter underground water to provide nutrition to the sea. Forests nurture animals that live in them; healthier forests enable richer biodiversity. As such, forests are the barometer of life. I examine the Japanese culture that is rooted in nature through my own lens and express it in the form of cuisine. My style of cooking is precisely the reconstruction of Satoyama cuisine.