Japanese chefs believe our soul goes into our knives once we start using them. You wouldn't put your soul in a dishwasher!
I'm not a fighter, but in my mind I'm fighting every day. 'What's new? What am I doing?' I'm fighting myself. My soul is samurai. My roots aren't samurai, but my soul is.
A kitchen without a knife is not a kitchen.
No rules. Don't be afraid to do whatever you want. Cooking doesn't have to have rules. I don't like it that way.
I've been making sushi for 38 years, and I'm still learning. You have to consider the size and color of the ingredients, how much salt and vinegar to use and how the seasons affect the fattiness of the fish.
I buy soy sauce and flavor it five different ways: with sake, mirin, sugar, kombu and bonito flakes. I use them on lots of dishes at home.
I'm not making art, I'm making sushi.
New York is my, you know, second hometown.
Right after I graduated high school, I joined a sushi restaurant to learn how to make Japanese food. And then spent seven years. Then that time - that's enough. Then sushi restaurant - butchering fish and they make your body smell like fishy.
Just ask the local people for the best food. Don't rely on a guidebook.
I always have dashi in my refrigerator - it's the almighty Japanese ingredient.
I want to expand my cuisine to this country. I love America. I have been here 22 years.
When I'm on the road, I wake up early and walk a lot. I'm very healthy. But when I come back home, I am more tempted by guilty pleasures, such as eating too many sweets and sleeping a lot.
I don't eat anything on an airplane.
Culture and tradition have to change little by little. So 'new' means a little twist, a marriage of Japanese technique with French ingredients. My technique. Indian food, Korean food; I put Italian mozzarella cheese with sashimi. I don't think 'new new new.' I'm not a genius. A little twist.
A lot of people think Japanese food is difficult, a lot of work. But you don't have to buy the knife I have. You don't have to train as long as I have. You can do my cooking in your kitchen.
A lot of people call me a celebrity chef, but I don't think that I'm a celebrity. So I want to stay keeping just a chef. That's more comfortable.
When I was a kid, I have two dreams. I want to be a baseball player. Hometown, Hiroshima, has a Japanese baseball franchise team called Hiroshima Carps. You know, and then I want to be a sushi chef. I want to make own restaurant - sushi restaurant.
On behalf of my native Japan, I am grateful to the culinary community and hospitality industry for working together to raise much-needed funds to aid the tsunami and earthquake victims.
Because I'm a chef, I eat out frequently, so it's hard for me to control what I consume in terms of calories. But when I'm at home, I eat what my wife cooks for me. She works hard to avoid making foods that are high in calories and cholesterol, so most of the time, she makes vegetarian dishes.
