Profile | Japanese chef Yoshihiro Narisawa on his new Shanghai restaurant, where Chinese culture and ingredients inspire his ‘unique dishes’
- Yoshihiro Narisawa’s eponymous Tokyo restaurant is ranked among the best in Asia, and recently he opened his first venture outside Japan, in Shanghai
- The Japanese chef talks about applying his philosophy of working with nature to Chinese ingredients to make the restaurant subtly different from the original
The year 2023 was big for chef Yoshihiro Narisawa. Not only did he celebrate the 20th anniversary of his eponymous two-Michelin-star Tokyo restaurant, but he also opened its first international outpost: Narisawa Shanghai.
Covid-19 pandemic-related delays meant it took five years to open the new restaurant, in Shanghai’s 1000 Trees complex, an avant-garde, mixed-use development, designed to look like forest-capped mountains, overlooking Suzhou Creek.
But the extra time meant more opportunity for research. Narisawa was drawn to China, and chose Shanghai as the destination for his first foreign location, after having admired Chinese food and culture for years.
“As I studied Japanese history and culture, I realised that many things were introduced from China, and I chose China because I wanted to experience and see the origins of that culture,” he says.
“Among these, the city of Shanghai, which retains its traditional culture and is constantly evolving, full of passion and vibrancy, was very appealing to me.”
