This much I know: Chef Takashi Miyazaki
meets TV presenter and Chef Takashi Miyazaki.
Growing up, I’d no plans to cook. I wanted to be an artist.
I was interested in painting, but my parents were against me going to art school. They wanted me to become a police officer instead.
I was also very into kendo, a Japanese martial art, and headed to university on a sports scholarship, where I got a part time job in the restaurant at my local domestic airport. The place was dirty and small, more of a cafe really, and I was really bad at the job, but it got me hooked on food. I then got work in a five-star hotel in my home town, cooking fusion teppanyaki. I quit university, determined to become a chef.
I had the passion, but I didn’t yet have the skill. I began cooking for my friends and was encouraged by the fact that they loved my food.
My training was kind of stressful, it was an old school, aggressive type of kitchen environment. I had no knowledge, no experience, and it was really strict. It was a typical Japanese kitchen, lots of shouting. I felt like I couldn’t say anything.
I have ended up in Ireland because I met my wife Stephanie when she was teaching English in Hiroshima and I was working in Molly Malone’s Irish pub. I was cooking cottage pie, bangers and mash, beef and Guinness pie… I had never eaten that kind of food.
I was head chef there for five years. Stephanie is from Offaly and we came over here on holiday a couple of times and I just started thinking that I wanted to move to Ireland. Although the sushi here was shocking. It was a big move, my mum was crying of course, but we did it in In 2008. I go back home every two years.
The thing that irritates me most about other people is… someone whistling in my kitchen.
Ambition, not talent, is definitely the most important thing. Ambition and passion.
If I could be someone else for a day, I’d be Salvador Dali. I love his art. He wrote a recipe book as well.
I worked in many jobs in Ireland until we moved to Cork and then opened Miyazaki restaurant in 2015. I was nervous and stressed out when we opened but I felt I had to make changes to the Japanese food scene in Ireland, thinking ‘if I don’t, who’s going to do it?’ There is so much more to Japanese food than sushi. It is like a treasure box - there are so many different things from each region. I’m still learning.
Stephanie is a national school teacher. Now, we have two boys, three and half and one and a half, and I’m so happy.
I try to keep some kind of balance in my life. Sunday is family time. We go swimming together. I do some foraging for seaweed with my son. The restaurant is closed on Monday too. The other five days, I’m in the English Market at 9am every morning and work right through, finishing up around 1am.
My job is physically demanding, and keeps me relatively fit but I also try to do pilates, or at least a bit of stretching at home. And I haven’t forgotten about visual art - I did the sketches on the menu.
Running a restaurant [his new restaurant ichigo ichie opened in May] can be very stressful of course. To calm down, I revert to a simple practice I learnt through kendo, I have a sit down, close my eyes and take deep breaths into the belly. It is like meditation. It calms the mind immediately.
My worst fault is spending money.
Sometimes I believe in an afterlife, sometimes I don’t. I’m Buddhist so I believe in my ancient ancestors.
If I could cook for anyone, living or dead, it would have to be Anthony Bourdain.
So far life has taught me to never give up.
