Latin America’s top chef on cooking in the now – ‘I like to cook the way I live and I live one day at a time’
- Japanese-Peruvian Mitsuharu Tsumura owns Maido, in Lima, No.1 on Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants list, and Aji, in Macau
- I don’t like to plan, he says, you never know what the next trend will be
How was it growing up in a bicultural environment? “My father was Japanese but I was born in Peru. I went to Japan to gain experience working as a chef. At first it was tough. The Japanese expect you to suffer while learning so that you will appreciate success. That is very different from Peruvian culture. I had no girlfriend during those years, because I was just working in the kitchen.”
How do you adapt your restaurants around the world? “We have a brand in Peru called Sushi POP. It is a casual brand and we deliver food from small outlets around the main city. We are opening four more restaurants next year, one of them in Miami [in the United States] and another in Colombia.
“Whenever we open a restaurant, we have to adapt to local tastes. For example, Japan has ramen and gyoza. Those are Chinese dishes, but the Japanese developed them in their own way. Our cuisine in Macau is Nikkei cuisine, but with flavours familiar to Chinese.”
