Chef jun tanaka biography of mahatma

It would be easy to pigeonhole Jun Tanaka.

Chef jun tanaka biography of mahatma

As a 'Japanese chef', perhaps, given that he has a Japanese name and was born to Japanese parents. Or possibly as a 'Michelin-starred chef', given that the eight restaurants he worked in before have largely been one- or two-Michelin-starred, and that the first under his ownership, the aptly named The Ninth, won its first very recently.

But to do so would be lazy.

For one, Tanaka only lived in Japan for six years – from the age of two to eight, after his family moved there from New York, and before they relocated to London. While he describes Japanese cuisine as "flavours that I associate with and that I'm comfortable with," his cooking at The Ninth shows only traces of the cuisine he grew up experiencing.

And, while his plating and preparation alone suggests The Ninth is clearly worth its place among London's other Michelin-starred restaurants, his menus there don't bear much resemblance to the largely