ROY YAMAGUCHI

What this episode covers

Roy Yamaguchi is one of the world’s most famous and successful chefs and restauranters. Roy was the first Hawaii recipient of the James Beard Foundation Award and was featured in Forbes Magazine. Using his local roots and worldwide experience, Roy has put together a world class business. He’s an author of numerous books, appeared on TV and has his own line of designer cookware. Roy also understands the importance of giving back. Every year Roy’s Restaurants participate in numerous fund raisers and events. Hawaii would not be the same without Roy Yamaguchi. Some questions asked: BIO: Roy Yamaguchi Chef & Owner, Roy’s Author, Roy’s Feasts From Hawaii The Early Years Although Roy was born in Tokyo, his Hawaii connection goes back to his grandfather, who owned a tavern in the ’40s in Wailuku, Maui, and who was also a pioneer of sorts in the local supermarket industry. Roy attributes his earliest appreciation of food to his father, a career military man born and raised on Maui, and to his Okinawan-born mother. Brought up in Tokyo within this fluent bilingual environment until the age of 17, Roy could not help but absorb much of Japan’s culture. Yet he still vividly recalls visits back to Maui to see his grandparents, and his first experiences of the Pacific. “My father would drive for hours just to get fresh fish, crabs, octopus and lobster from the piers. From trips to Okinawa, mom would haul back live spiny lobsters. And it seems that I have always loved to cook; whether it was fried Portuguese sausage and eggs for breakfast, or a full-on Thanksgiving dinner for the family, even if it was for credit in a home ec class.” So even before graduating from high school in 1974, Roy knew what he wanted to do: enroll in the Culinary Institute of America in New York’s Hyde Park, where he was to receive his first exposure to classical traditions. After graduating in 1976, Roy’s devotion to French cooking would be nurtured further in southern California, where he signed on for an apprenticeship at L’Escoffier, followed by one at L’Ermitage. Roy still considers L’Ermitage’s late master chef Jean Bertranou to be his mentor. In a June ’88 Bon Appetit cover story, Roy recalls how he absorbed the “inner secrets of haute cuisine” at this legendary West Hollywood restaurant: I almost turned down the job because I didn’t think I was good enough… but I started out doing simple things, like cutting fish and meat. I also learned more in two and a half years there than I could have anywhere else. Those two (Bertranou and his right-hand man, Michel Blanchet) taught me lessons straight from the School of Hard Knocks. They didn’t take things lightly… I learned to do a dish and work at it until it was perfect. I learned to feel if a dish was right. Thoroughly imbued by this discipline, Roy found the confidence to tackle his first experience as an executive chef at Le Serene by late 1979. This was followed by a few memorable months at the eternally posh Michael’s in Santa Monica, working for “California Cuisine” originator Michael McCarty. Yamaguchi then continued to fuse French techniques and largely Japanese ingredients as executive chef of Le Gourmet in the Sheraton Plaza La Reina – an unusual venue that is still talked about by frequent LAX travelers/gourmets. Finally in 1984, Roy opened his first restaurant as an owner, 385 North on Hollywood’s La Cienega. This is where the Yamaguchi cooking style, described by Bon Appetit as “California-French-Japanese-eclectic,” first came into bloom. Dishes like rare ahi in grapefruit vinaigrette and Asian herb sauce would represent something bold even brazen, for some; but for Yamaguchi, merely “the next evolutionary step for a classic dish.