Chef to the stars

LAUREN TAYLOR meets renowned chef Nobuyuki ‘Nobu’ Matsuhisa to talk A-list guests and why he has no plans to retire

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The art of sushi making was reserved for restaurants in Japan at the time. “Becoming a sushi chef was my dream when I was a kid,” Nobu says. He dropped out of architect high school to train at a small family-run sushi restaurant in Tokyo at 18, but spent a “tough” three years cleaning and prepping before any of the senior chefs would show him how to make sushi.

Nobu moved to Peru at the age of 23 where he started to imagine how Japanese food could take on elements from Peruvian cuisine.

“Now, ceviche [raw fish marinated in lemon juice for up to six hours] is all over the world, people know about it, but 50 years ago, nobody knew. I knew Japan had fish so then [I thought] use the same fish and make it in a different way.