Masaki Sugisaki

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Masaki Sugisaki

A traditionally trained Japanese chef, Masaki's creative flair meant moving away from the strict culinary rules of his home country to create a fusion-led approach to modern Japanese food in London.

Japanese chefs are known for being some of the most skilled in existence, honing their craft over decades in the pursuit of perfection in a certain culinary discipline. It’s this that makes Japan a culinary mecca for chefs around the world, who revere the attention to detail, focus on quality produce and deep understanding of flavour that make up its cuisine. For chef Masaki Sugisaki, the traditional (and at times restricting) way Japanese chefs work formed the basis of his skills, but he truly flourished after moving to London and now leads the team at Dinings SW3, a luxurious Japanese restaurant in Chelsea with plenty of European influences.

Despite his culinary skill today, Masaki wasn’t one of those people who know they want to be a chef from the get-go – in fact, he actively hated it at first. ‘My parents ran a traditional kaiseki restaurant in Japan, so I was born and raised in the kitchen,’ he explains. ‘When I turned fifteen I started working there as I was the eldest son, and in Japan it’s traditional for the eldest to take over the family business. So while my friends were playing after school I was a kitchen porter or working front of house. My father would regularly wake me up at 3am to go to the fish market, then send me off to school, then I’d continue to work in the restaurant in the evenings. Unsurprisingly, I hated it at the time! But eventually I started to get into it and realise I had a responsibility to learn as much as I could.’

While he had finally caught the cooking bug, Masaki’s desire to travel and experience cultures beyond Japan was strong, so in the early 1990s he moved to London to see what the city was like. He quickly landed a job at a Japanese restaurant, but was shocked at what he saw. ‘No one really knew what Japanese food was apart from sushi, and even then many customers were scared to eat raw fish!’ he says. ‘The quality of the fish was scarily bad too, but there was nothing else available. I struggled over the next five years, trying to introduce different elements of Japanese cuisine to the customers, but then I returned to Japan as there was a recession and my parents’ restaurants were going through a tough time.’

Masaki’s return to Japan saw him take on his first head chef role, and while his parents had to sell a few of their restaurants, the high-end kaiseki ones were turned around and saved. A few years later, his parents wanted to retire and asked Masaki to take over the business, but after experiencing the freedom of being a chef in London, the very strict protocols that must be followed in a traditional Japanese restaurant became stifling. Instead, Masaki sold the family business, raising enough money for his parents to happily retire to the countryside. After a spell working at a large sushi restaurant in Tokyo, the opportunity to become part of the team at Nobu Berkeley Street back in London arose – and Masaki jumped at the chance.

‘What they were doing at Nobu just blew my mind. Everything they did was very Japanese and of the highest quality, but they were able to translate the food into something that appealed to European diners. They were communicating with the customers and in turn those people were learning more about Japanese food. When I started work there, it was like a dream world.’

Masaki spent the next few years at Nobu, until a close friend wanted to open his own place. With Masaki’s help, Dinings Harcourt opened in 2006. This was his chance to be the creative chef he wanted to be. ‘In kaiseki restaurants like the one my parents had, you have specific ingredients you must use every month because they’re in season, and you have to cook them in a specific way. That’s why if you work as a chef for ten years in Japan, you’re still regarded as new and young – after all, you’ve only cooked each season ten times. These dishes have been carried over the generations, so they’re very historic, and there’s something quite beautiful about striving for perfection in cooking these same things over and over. But it just wasn’t for me, and the freedom I experienced in London – especially at Nobu – just spoke to me more as a chef.’

The first couple of years at Dinings Harcourt were a nervous and unsure time for Masaki. Struggling to find his own identity and very aware he could not just recreate what he’d been doing at Nobu, he would change the menu daily at the restaurant. It wasn’t until he ran a stand at the Taste of London festival that he started to become confident in his cooking.

‘Our stall was near the entrance and as soon as people came in they were queueing at our stand. It was crazy – we were working flat out all day and after the first lunch rush I just had to lie down on the floor and rest. But it made me realise we’d been doing something right, and I didn’t have to worry about things and be nervous every day at the restaurant. So I started to relax and really focus on my own identity and philosophy. I started cooking for the customers, rather than trying to show off how good traditional Japanese cuisine can be. I’ve now been cooking in London for around twenty years, which is longer than the time I’ve cooked in Japan, so this puts me in quite a unique position. I can take what I learnt in Japan, understand what people in London want to eat and add my own style to the menu.’

Masaki continued to play around with traditional sushi and sashimi at Dinings Harcourt, expanding the menu to include a variety of small plates which, while distinctly Japanese, introduced plenty of European influences. In 2013 he moved over to Dinings SW3, a larger restaurant in a beautiful Chelsea mews, which is where his full focus lies now – and where you can find the best examples of his inimitable and delicious Japanese fusion cuisine.