My name is Miho and this is my story.
Who I am, why I became a chef and why I do what I do now
I never thought about becoming a chef or wanted to be a chef.
I didn’t know anything about the food industry.
From the age of 13 I worked as a model and stopped working when I was 18 because I wanted to see the world and was looking for something that I didn’t know at the time.
After living in London for 1 year, I realized I wanted to be a fashion event planner. Not because I thought fashion was a glamorous goal, more like it was part of my life. I knew it’s a tough industry but I still found beauty in working with a big team and putting together a project.
I got accepted to university but didn’t have the money for it, so I looked for an internship at a PR company. At that time, the economy was terrible, no-one was looking to hire someone without any experience.
I went for interviews for many different types of jobs but working in a restaurant was the quickest way to receive money.
Yes, I needed to pay rent.
So I end up in a restaurant. Not as a chef but as a dispenser which is making and serving coffee, wine and etc.
I regretted my decision to work in a restaurant as soon as I started, not knowing then that this was a Michelin starred chef owned restaurant that had only recently opened. Something customers may not know, is that when a restaurant first opens everything is complete chaos behind the scene.
The position of dispenser may sound very simple but it really wasn’t. I experienced physical and mental hardship that I had never experienced before.
But I didn’t give up and then one day, our restaurant director and owner chef saw me helping the pastry section and they saw something in me. They asked if I would like to work in the kitchen. My answer was ‘Thank you but No thank you!’. Inside of me thinking ‘Hell NO!’
I saw so many emotional breakdowns, long hours and it looked constantly very high pressure.
But they didn’t give up on me.
They negotiated with me about working hours and the salary situation, plus they told me that I can go back to doing what I do if I don’t like it.
I always like to try something new, especially If I have nothing to lose, so I thought why not! I would give it a try!
But it still looked horrifying.
That was the start of my career in the kitchen.
And I fell in love with working in the kitchen.
This was because I always love to create something with my hands.
After I came back to Tokyo I worked in another Michelin restaurant, various other restaurants and also I worked as a manager in a high-end cake shop.
Fortunately, I had amazing experiences, but never having been to culinary school was my insecurity. I asked a few respected chefs about this and they said, ‘That is actually your strength not your weakness’, ‘Do you know how many great chefs there are out there who started as a dishwasher?’ ‘Skills learnt through working in a kitchen are more useful than studying in a classroom’ and comments like these.
I witnessed so many young chefs who had just finished culinary school and were full of dreams but after working in a real kitchen they left within 1 week. This may sound like an exaggeration but it’s true.
It’s really not a pretty world.
So my insecurity became my favorite story.
Then I had an accident that changed everything.
I never thought it would happen to me but I got a back injury, which is common amongst chefs. I couldn’t even get up from my bed.
This was a shocking moment for me.
This accident at the age of 30 was a turning point as it brought back a deep desire of what I had always wanted to do – to create my own world.
So I decided to make my own business then I thought ‘what can I do that nobody else does?’
At the time I had gluten allergies because through my work as a pastry chef, I was eating gluten every day for tasting and I inhaled flower almost daily from morning until night.
Then I realised most chefs don’t enjoy orders that are gluten free or accommodating allergies because it takes time, it’s changes the harmony with other food and ultimately they believe it doesn’t taste nice.
However, I actually cherish these orders because it’s creating something new and this challenges me.
So I want to have a place that makes food that is good for every different person.
To do that, I only can serve a small group of people and I want to treat them exclusively.
That’s how my private dining started.
Vision
I believe everyone has different tastes and peoples’ bodies have different traction with different ingredients. But I hope and aim to make something that makes each person happy and smile when they eat my dinner. And that I can bring back some familiar tastes or lovely memories through my food.
Contact
Book now