PEBBLE BEACH FOOD & WINE — CHEFS

CHEFS

Roy Yamaguchi

Founding Chef/Owner
Roy's Restaurants

The Early Years

Although Roy was born in Tokyo, his Hawaii connection goes back to his grandfather, who owned a tavern in the '40s in Wailuku, Maui, and who was also a pioneer of sorts in the local supermarket industry. Roy attributes his earliest appreciation of food to his father, a career military man born and raised on Maui, and to his Okinawan-born mother. Brought up in Tokyo within this fluent bilingual environment until the age of 17, Roy could not help but absorb much of Japan's culture. Yet he still vividly recalls visits back to Maui to see his grandparents, and his first experiences of the Pacific. "My father would drive for hours just to get fresh fish, crabs, octopus and lobster from the piers. From trips to Okinawa, Mom would haul back live spiny lobsters. And it seems that I have always loved to cook, whether it was fried Portuguese sausage and eggs for breakfast, or a full-on Thanksgiving dinner for the family, even if it was for credit in a home ec class." So even before graduating from high school in 1974, Roy knew what he wanted to do: enroll in the Culinary Institute of America in New York's Hyde Park, where he was to receive his first exposure to classical traditions. After graduating in 1976, Roy's devotion to French cooking would be nurtured further in Southern California, where he signed on for an apprenticeship at L'Escoffier, followed by one at L'Ermitage. Roy still considers L'Ermitage's late master chef Jean Bertranou to be his mentor. In a June '88 Bon Appetit cover story, Roy recalls how he absorbed the "inner secrets of haute cuisine" at this legendary West Hollywood restaurant: "I almost turned down the job because I didn't think I was good enough... but I started out doing simple things, like cutting fish and meat. I also learned more in two and a half years there than I could have anywhere else. Those two (Bertranou and his right-hand man, Michel Blanchet) taught me lessons straight from the School of Hard Knocks. They didn't take things lightly... I learned to do a dish and work at it until it was perfect. I learned to feel if a dish was right."

Thoroughly imbued by this discipline, Roy found the confidence to tackle his first experience as an executive chef at Le Serene by late 1979. This was followed by a few memorable months at the eternally posh Michael's in Santa Monica, working for "California Cuisine" originator Michael McCarty. Yamaguchi then continued to fuse French techniques and largely Japanese ingredients as executive chef of Le Gourmet in the Sheraton Plaza La Reina,an unusual venue that frequent LAX travelers/gourmets still talk about. Finally, in 1984, Roy opened his first restaurant as an owner, 385 North on Hollywood's La Cienega Boulevard. This is where the Yamaguchi cooking style, described by Bon Appetit as "California-French-Japanese-eclectic," first came into bloom. Dishes such as rare ahi in grapefruit vinaigrette and Asian herb sauce would represent something bold, even brazen, for some, but for Yamaguchi merely "the next evolutionary step for a classic dish." It was plenty good, in fact, for the California Restaurant Writers Association, which chose Roy for their "California Chef of the Year" in 1986 and 1987. Nevertheless, all the while Roy plotted still another move to a more ideal, and idyllic, location to expand his ideas. So after dissolving his L.A. partnership in early 1988, he uprooted his young family to renew his acquaintance with Hawaii, settling into the eastern side of Oahu known as Hawaii Kai (where Roy Jr. was born in July 1990).

The First Decade in Hawaii

The opening of Roy's Restaurant in late December 1988 did not go unnoticed. Within months Food & Wine (Nov. '89) dubbed it "the crown jewel of Honolulu's East-West eateries." Actually, to be fair, it was virtually the only one of its type in the early years. Nevertheless, Mimi Sheraton would select this pioneering Hawaiian Fusion project as one of Conde Nast Traveler's "Top 50" in America in '91 and '92; and by early 1992, Roy's Restaurant would be enshrined in Nation's Restaurant News' "Fine Dining Hall of Fame," Gault-Millau would award it two "toques" (a 17/20 rating), and in a Forbes FYI Andre Gayot would rank it amongst the nation's "Top 40." Proclaimed Gayot, "Yamaguchi invents his own tropical culinary scenario, blending French, Italian, Thai, Japanese and Chinese cuisines... no one has gone so far yet, at least with success." But even more important to Yamaguchi has been his restaurants' overwhelming acceptance by island cognoscenti, who have voted Roy's as Hawaii's "Most Popular Restaurant" in consecutive editions of the Zagat Hawaii Survey. Surely this show of support is what helped kick-start the critical and popular success of Yamaguchi's second Hawaii venture, Roy's Kahana Bar & Grill, in January 1992 on the neighbor island of Maui. And as always, the proof has been in the pudding: For consecutive years since, readers of the Maui News have proclaimed Roy's Kahana Bar & Grill to be their "Best Overall Restaurant," and following the fortunes of Roy's in Honolulu, it even managed to crack Mimi Sheraton's list of Conde Nast Traveler's "Top 50."

After accepting a James Beard Award for being 1993's "Best Pacific Northwest Chef" and Hawaii's first recipient of this prestigious, peer-selected national honor - Roy commented to the local press that he hoped this recognition ends up being just a first step toward proving "that Hawaii has the talent and chefs to compete nationally." To that end, Roy has devoted a considerable amount of thought and energy to Hawaii Public Television's Hawaii Cooks with Roy Yamaguchi. More than a cooking show, this 13-segments-per-season series' objective has been to share the beauty and culture of the islands, by telling the story of its food producers, artists, and, of course, chefs. Seen in more than 300 stations in all 50 states, and in more than 60 countries, the show has just taped its seventh series this year.

Yamaguchi has just recently returned from Japan, where he taped a segment with the Food Network for its series "My Country, My Kitchen," which aired on May 23. In 2001, Yamaguchi was selected to be among the "Iron Chef USA" world-class contingent, which includes Todd English (Olives, Figs), Jean Francois Meteigner (La Cachette), and Alessandro Stratta (Renoir).

On the literary side, Yamaguchi found the time to produce a brilliantly illustrated cookbook, Roy's Feasts From Hawaii (Ten Speed Press, 1995), now in its third printing, and enjoying national and international distribution. A second cookbook, Hawaii Cooks, Flavors from Roy's Pacific Rim Kitchen, was published in 2003. And Yamaguchi released his third cookbook, Roy's Fish and Seafood, Recipes from the Pacific Rim in 2005. Also, since the mid-'90s, BusinessFirst travelers on Continental and Continental Micronesia between Asia, Hawaii, the West Coast, and the Southwest have been able to enjoy Roy Yamaguchi's cuisine during their in-flight service.