Absolutely the best Japanese restaurant in Manila! This restaurant never ceases to remind me how lucky and proud I am to be part Japanese. Chef Imamura’s skill and sophistication is felt in every dish… The delicate flavors are discrete, yet powerful… The foie gras simply melts in your mouth!
For lunch, they offer a comprehensive kaiseki-style set lunch, but I always order a few of my favorite extras that you’ll find on the dinner menu – such as the truffle rice and the Foie gras I mentioned above.
If you love Japanese food (as much as I do – and being a chef, my wife claims I’m TERRIBLY picky when we go out to eat), this is definitely a place you NEED to try! It’s my “go to” place when I miss my home country’s cuisine!
A huge thank you to Chef Imamura for yet another fantastic meal!
Salvatore Cuomo was born in Naples, Italy, in 1972, son of an Italian father and Japanese mother.
Cuomo was first inspired by his father who also was an Italian Chef in Naples. He began at the young age of 11, where he trained himself in the kitchen and traveled frequently between Italy and Japan. He gradually learned how to blend the traditional Italian art of cooking with the Japanese art of perfection.
A few years later he traveled to Japan with his father who opened an Italian restaurant in Chiba in 1984. About those early years Salvatore told the press that it wasn't a good starting experience: "I didn’t like Japan at all, so after one year, I went back to Italy and spent 2–3 years studying at a culinary school. When I was 18, I returned to Japan after my father became terminally ill and I have been here ever since."[3] Cuomo said that Italian Cuisine was just starting to get popular in those days. He and his two brothers decided that in order to succeed in the restaurant business in Japan they would have to understand the Japanese food mentality. They spent a couple of years researching the market before opening a new restaurant in Tokyo with what Cuomo calls "Original Neapolitan pizza."
Since that time, Cuomo has been credited with catapulting Neapolitan pizza to fame in Japan, and today in all Asia with over 100 restaurant.
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