Salvatore Cuomo (Shigeta) is an Italian-born Japanese celebrity chef, restaurateur and media personality, known for his food-focused television shows and cookbooks, as well as for his restaurants across Asia.
Known in Japan as “The Pizza Man” and “The Grand Chef”, he strives to improve Italian cuisine internationally. Salvatore Cuomo Restaurants, Catering Services, Cookbooks and Licensed Products are run by Salvatore Cuomo International
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.
His first job was as pizzaiolo in Naples, where he first gained experience with preparing pizzas and Italian dishes, and developed a relationship with his mentor, his father.
Cuomo has been credited with catapulting Neapolitan pizza to fame in Japan and today he operates and supervises more than 77 Pizza Salvatore restaurants, and five The Kitchen Salvatore Cuomo restaurants (in Kyoto, Nagoya and Shanghai, Seoul Korea), as well as Salvatore Cuomo Bros (under the umbrella of XEX),Cuomo has made numerous guest appearances on TV programs such as Iron Chef and Buona Sera, an Italian cooking program on WOWOW.
He has written three books: Welcome to Neapolitan Dining Table (1995), Happy Pasta (1997) and Sun’s Dining Table (1999).
In 2010 Salvatore Cuomo collaborating with Tsujikuchi Hironobu, Japanese chef patissier-chocolatier.In December 2013, Tsujikuchi Hiroshi chef at Le Chocolat de H (Japan), owned by Y’s Table Corporation, wins the highest award for a Pastry Chef at the Salon Du Chocolat, International Pastry Competition held in Paris.In February 2014 Salvatore Cuomo opened his first restaurant in Taiwan. TVBS reported that the chef’s move would help the country with an injection of $70 million in the economy. Close all operation in 2017Paul Huaug, pizzaiolo working for Chef Cuomo won the Caputo Cup (Taipei) in May 2014. Paul Huang is the first officially recognised Taiwanese pizzaiolo by the Italian Neapolitan Pizzaiolo Association. Always the same month Salvatore Cuomo appears on Vogue Taiwan and Taiwanese Television storm the restaurant for the weeks after the competition as first Taiwanese Pizza Maker wins an international competition for the first time in the history of the country.
Today, Salvatore Cuomo is a C.E.O. /CHAIRMAN of Salvatore Cuomo International
Guinness 2016 Longest Pizza in the World Record in Naples
Unesco 2017 in Jeju Korea (Art of Neapolitan Pizza Maker)