Award-winning chef Roy Yamaguchi fuses fresh Asian ingredients with European inspiration to create culinary masterpieces that are setting the world alight, writes Elliott Samuels. Portraits by David Stetson. Most chefs are taught at an early age that there’s a right way to do something in the kitchen and a wrong way. After working in the…

Photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto has spent much of his life inviting audiences to re-evaluate conventional notions of time and space. Jonathan Day catches up with the conceptual artist during a recent visit to Tokyo for the launch of a special retrospective exhibition held in his honor. Portraits by Androniki Christodoulou. European and American artists have historically…

In a country more commonly associated with sake than Chardonnay, it’s perhaps safe to assume that most expatriates believe the local wine industry is still a little wet behind the ears. However there are a growing number of respectable wineries in Japan that are well worth visiting, particularly those located in the Yamanashi region just…

Though Tokyo boasts the highest number of non-Japanese transplants, the award for history and culture surely goes to the Kansai region. From ancient temples in Nara, to the sprawling vistas of Kobe. These 8 schools you can learn the Japanese while exploring its rich history in the heart of Japan. Contents ◆Aim Nara International Academy…

It’s hard to imagine a pair of mild-mannered tsugaru shamisen players from Hokkaido being able to whip difficult crowds in the United States into a frenzy, and yet that’s precisely what happened during a recent tour of America by the Yoshida Brothers, Japan’s answer to the Everly Brothers of the late fifties and early sixties….

By the time the lunch gong had sounded in the great hall of the Heng Yang monastery, I had already placed generous votive offerings at a shrine in the Temple of the Goddess of Mercy, watched a flour doll and knot-maker at work, witnessed minor grievances being aired at the Ancient Courthouse and met a…

©︎2020 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved Grand Hyatt Tokyo is pleased to introduce a new afternoon tea menu in collaboration with Takashi Murakami, one of six artists currently featured in the “STARS: Six Contemporary Artists from Japan to the World” exhibition showing at Mori Art Museum until January 3, 2021. Fiorentina Pastry…

Brett Bull speaks to an American gentleman who has spent more than 26 years sharpening his knowledge of the art of traditional sword polishing. When Jon Bowhay picks up a Japanese sword, samurai fantasies of hacking at armor and crushing bone – probably standard visions for most – are not what come to mind. Rather,…

Dr Mamoru Mohri, director of the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, captured the imagination of an entire generation with his exploits in space in the early 1990s. Rather than rest on his laurels, however, the man who has spent 19 days looking down on the earth from on high is working tirelessly to…

Eri Yaegashi draws inspiration from the creative freedom that exists in Tokyo, writes, Laura Fitch. TOKYO IS A CITY THAT’S KNOWN FOR its style. The metropolis has spawned artists and designers of international fame and boasts some of the most architecturally creative buildings in the world. But for every Hanae Mori or Hiroshi Sugimoto, there…