From Taylor Swift to Leonardo DiCaprio, many A-listers have been spotted dining at the swanky Nobu restaurants, a global empire run by Japanese chef Nobuyuki Matsuhisa.
But no one will quite live up to his “most memorable” celebrity story – Princess Diana dining at his first London eatery, in 1997, shortly before her death.
“A couple of months before she got into the accident, my business partner invited Princess Diana, then I cooked for her,” says the chef, better known as Nobu.
Admitting he was nervous to say hello, the 76-year-old notes: “I said, ‘Pleasure to meet you, Princess. And she said to me, ‘Oh, Chef Nobu, I’ve read about you.’
“I was so surprised, I was so happy she knew me,” he says proudly, now. “She loved what I cooked for her”, which was “a very simple tempura, I didn’t want to give anything too strange to the royal family. She liked the tempura, she liked fish, sushi… I think she enjoyed it because she ate it all.”
Nobu adds he was “so shocked, so sad” to learn of Diana’s death in a car crash in Paris. “I always still remember her face, she’s smiling.”
After debuting at his Matsuhisa restaurant in Beverly Hills in the Eighties, Nobu now has more than 50 worldwide, as well as around 40 hotels.
He says UK A-listers including Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney and Kate Winslet have enjoyed dining at his UK restaurants – the newest of which is Nobu Hotel London Portman Square.
The chef is known for popularising Japanese food – particularly sushi – with Peruvian influence (just don’t call it fusion – “I prefer ‘Nobu style’,” he says). Nobu can take credit for inventing “black cod with miso”, his signature dish and recreated by restaurateurs the world over.
Cindy Crawford once requested the top chef to create something off the menu for her at his famous LA restaurant – “Some tempura but in a different way with shrimp, scallops, onions, then steamed rice with tempura on top. The Japanese name is kakiage donburi” – a dish he named “Cindy Rice” so Crawford could ask for it again.
His head chef in New York had to call up Nobu to ask how exactly to make it, because the legendary model had just walked into the restaurant and requested “Cindy Rice”.
Born in the small town of Saitama, near Tokyo, Nobu’s childhood bedroom was next to the kitchen. “Every morning, my mother, my grandmother, started cooking breakfast. I’d wake up to the smells and the sounds and walk into the kitchen.” His mum has since died but, he says, “everyone has a memory of missing their mother cooking”.
The art of sushi making was reserved for restaurants in Japan at the time. “Becoming a sushi chef was my dream when I was a kid,” Nobu says. He dropped out of architecture high school to train at a small family-run sushi restaurant in Tokyo at 18, but spent a “tough” three years cleaning and prepping before any of the senior chefs would show him how to make sushi.
With dreams of making it in another country, Nobu moved to Peru at the age of 23. It was there he started to imagine how Japanese food could take on elements from Peruvian cuisine.
“Now, ceviche [raw fish marinated in lemon juice for up to six hours] is all over the world, people know about it, but 50 years ago, nobody knew. I knew Japan had fish so then [I thought], use the same fish and make it in a different way.
“From this moment, my eyes opened. Then I started thinking about every Peruvian dish, and I made it in a Japanese way,” and he opened a restaurant in Lima.
But his next venture would take him and his family to Alaska, with the opportunity to open a restaurant there.
After just 50 days of opening, an electrical problem caused a devastating fire, destroying the whole restaurant. “It means my restaurant is gone, my dream is gone, I lost everything,” Nobu says. He had suicidal thoughts, he shares, but it was a moment watching his young children and wife that helped him out of a dark place.
“They didn’t know why Daddy was staying at home, they were playing, they started screaming or fighting and something happened then, this voice in my ear, then I kind of woke up to, ‘Oh, yes, I have a family, I have two kids, I’ve got to try one more time to survive.’
“It was a very tough time but this experience is now appreciated,” he says, “Because this experience makes Nobu what it is.”
He learned “you can never give up”, he notes. “But no rush, I like to go one by one, step by step, even one millimetre a day. Lots of people helped me and supported me, I felt so much, being loved.”
Nobu opened the famous Matsuhisa in Beverly Hills, California, in 1987, garnering celebrity fanfare. Actor Robert De Niro liked it so much he offered to go into partnership with the Japanese chef – an opportunity Nobu turned down at first.
“After four or five years, he approached me again, so this time, [I thought] oh, I can trust him. Because it was not only money, he was watching me and what I was doing.”
Together, they opened Nobu New York in 1994 – the first of many with the Nobu name. Over the years, some of the establishments have gained and lost Michelin stars, but Nobu says it’s not his focus.
“Can I say it straight? I am not looking for Michelin stars, because I never care for titles. My ‘Michelin star’ is customers smiling and eating.”
The yellowtail Jalapeño sashimi is one of his most iconic restaurant dishes – and many people go for the sushi. But it turns out we might not be eating it correctly.
Eat it with fingers, not chopsticks, Nobu notes. “Take it by the fingers, [holding] halfway down and dip the fish side in soy sauce – then eat in one bite.”
Don’t dip the rice into soy sauce. “Soy sauce has a lot of sodium and sushi is very sensitive – the raw fish, the wasabi, the rice, it’s not a very strong flavour so you have to just touch the soy sauce – I hope [people] never use the soy sauce with the rice side.”
Despite being in his mid-70s with a huge empire, “In my dictionary it doesn’t have any ‘retirement’,” Nobu says, laughing. He doesn’t want to stop work and “stay at home with nothing to do”.
“I still can do [a lot], I still have health, I can still travel – I’m a very lucky person.”
For more information or to book Nobu Portman Square, visit nobuhotels.com/london-portman/.
Rock shrimp tempura with creamy spicy sauce
The creamy spicy sauce is the real star of this dish, and a Nobu favourite the world over.
Serves: 4-6
Ingredients:
650g rock shrimp, or peeled and deveined large shrimp cut into bite-sized pieces
Yuzu juice or lemon juice
Vegetable oil for deep frying
For the sauce:
1 egg yolk
½ tsp sea salt
½ tsp white pepper
1 tsp rice vinegar
100ml grapeseed oil, or other mildly flavoured oil
2 tsp chilli garlic sauce (Toban Djan)
For the tempura batter:
1 egg yolk
200ml iced water
100g all-purpose flour
Method:
1. Start by making the sauce. Whisk together the egg yolk, salt, pepper and vinegar, then very gradually whisk in the grapeseed oil. Start with just a few drops to create an emulsion, then increase the amount of oil, whisking all the while. Once all the oil has been added and your sauce is nice and thick, stir through the chilli garlic sauce.
2. Whisk all the batter ingredients together and combine well.
3. Heat around 5 inches of vegetable oil in a pan suitable for deep frying until it reaches 180C or 355F. Working in batches of 2-3 small handfuls, coat the shrimp in the tempura batter and gently drop into the hot oil, frying for a few minutes until golden. Remove the shrimp from the oil and place onto a paper towel-covered tray to drain. Repeat the process until all the shrimp is cooked.
4. Transfer the fried shrimp to a large bowl, pour over the sauce and toss to coat. Finish with a splash of yuzu or lemon juice and garnish with chopped chives.
Tip: If shrimp is unavailable, you can try this sauce with any white fish tempura, or even vegetable tempura. If you don’t have the right equipment for frying, this sauce is also delicious drizzled over any grilled fish or meat.
Seafood ceviche
A combination of raw and cooked seafood, vegetables, and spicy-sour ceviche sauce. This dish is light, fresh, and ideal for entertaining.
Serves: 4
Ingredients:
180g mixed seafood (delicately flavoured varieties such as fresh white fish and shellfish, boiled octopus, boiled squid, boiled shrimp), cut into bite-size pieces
¼ red onion, thinly sliced
½ cucumber, peeled and cut into thin round slices
4 each red, yellow, and orange mini tomatoes, halved
4 tsp finely chopped coriander leaves
5 tbsp plus 1 tsp ceviche sauce
Coriander sprigs, for garnish
For the ceviche sauce:
4 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp yuzu juice
½ tsp sea salt
1 tsp soy sauce
½ tsp finely grated garlic
½ tsp grated ginger
½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp aji amarillo paste
Method:
1. Make the ceviche sauce: Combine all the ingredients (yields approximately 5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon).
2. Mix all the seafood and vegetables together well.
3. Combine with the ceviche sauce and transfer to a serving dish. Top with a coriander sprig and serve immediately.
Sashimi salad with Matsuhisa dressing
A favourite with customers from when Matsuhisa first opened, Matsuhisa dressing is an appetising soy-sauce-based mixture enhanced by sweet onions and aromatic sesame oil.
Serves: 4
Ingredients:
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
200g fresh tuna fillet
5 tbsp plus 1 tsp Matsuhisa dressing
60g assorted salad vegetables (eg micro greens)
For the matsuhisa dressing (yields 350ml):
70g finely chopped onion
2 tbsp plus 2 tsp soy sauce
1 tbsp plus 1 tsp rice vinegar
2 tsp water
½ tsp granulated sugar
A pinch sea salt
¼ tsp powdered mustard
A pinch freshly ground black pepper
4 tsp grapeseed oil
4 tsp sesame oil
Method:
1. Make the dressing: combine all the ingredients except the oils. When the salt is fully dissolved, add oils. (Note: this all-purpose dressing also works with meat and tofu).
2. Preheat a grill or broiler. Sprinkle a little sea salt and black pepper on the tuna. Briefly sear the tuna until its surface turns white. Plunge the fillet into iced water to stop it cooking any further, then shake off the excess water.
3. Pour the Matsuhisa dressing into a serving dish. Arrange the salad vegetables in the centre of the dish. Cut the tuna into slices ⅛ inch (4-5mm) thick. Roll each slice into a cylinder and place them in a petal-like pattern around the vegetables in the centre.
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