Interviews

1. What Makes Japanese Cooking In Peru Interesting (Japanese)

2. Integrating As First-Generation Japanese-Peruvian (Japanese)

3. Peru Representative vs. Japan Representative (Japanese)

4. What’s Next as a Chef (Japanese)

5. Japanese-Peruvian Cuisine (Japanese)

6. World-Renowned Peruvian Cuisine (Japanese)

7. Fusion Cuisine (Japanese)

8. Thoughts on Japan (Japanese)

9. Bento menu for hostage incident (Japanese)

10. Delivering Dinner for Former President Fujimori (Japanese)

11. Inspirations for Living Abroad (Japanese)

12. Memories of the Late Yoshitaro Amano (Japanese)

13. Difference Between Past Immigrants and Today’s Immigrants (Japanese)

Konishi,Toshiro

(b. 1962) Japanese restaurant owner and chef in Peru

What’s Next as a Chef (Japanese)

(Japanese) Of course, as a chef, I want to make even better things, be more extravagant. To that end, I’m always wondering if there aren’t even better ingredients out there somewhere. Back in ’82…1982…That’s what, 20 or 25 years ago now? I got together with 5 fishermen and went from Ecuador to the Chilean border, spending about 2 months catching fish all along the way. We saw wondrous things…We saw things we’d never seen before. And now these things are being distributed. In that way, this is an extremely interesting place.

And another thing...what I still don’t know about is jungle ingredients. I’ve never really used them. Now if someone over there knew about that stuff and brought them here, that would be great. But it’s a hot place. And it’s freshwater fish, so they go bad easily. So given that, there are some difficulties, but the next challenge is to see what’s in the jungle. Vegetables or whatever. If we use things from the jungle and once again put them together with Japanese cuisine and culture, what can we create? There are many chances for that. So going forward, I don’t think things will be boring.

cooking cuisine food fusion cuisine Peru

Date: April 18, 2007

Location: Lima, Peru

Interviewer: Ann Kaneko

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Toshiro Konishi was born on July 11, 1953, the fourth son of a long-established Japanese restaurant owner in Saito City, Miyazaki Prefecture. Having played in the kitchen from around the age of six, at 11-years-old, Konishi began helping out in the kitchen with other chef candidates. Then in 1971, at age 16, he headed to Tokyo and became a chef at the restaurant “Fumi”.

In 1974, he moved to Peru with Nobuyuki Matsuhisa, known in America, Japan, and elsewhere for his Japanese fusion cuisine at his restaurant, “Nobu”. After working at the Japanese restaurant “Matsuei” for ten years, he opened “Toshiro’s” and “Wako” in a Sheraton hotel in Lima. In 2002, he also became manager of “Sushi Bar Toshiro’s” in the San Isidro region.

Aside from running the restaurants, he taught at San Ignacio de Loyola University, participated in culinary festivals around the world, introduced innovative cuisine known as “Peruvian Fusion” (a mix of Japanese and Peruvian cuisines), and received numerous awards. In 2008 he became the first Japanese chef based in Latin America to receive the Japanese government’s Minister's Prize from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. (October 2009)