Masaharu Morimoto: 22 years of getting Japanese food right in Mumbai

When Masaharu Morimoto opened Wasabi by Morimoto at Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Palace 22 years ago, he arrived with a menu he was confident would work. Within a month, he had to change half of it. “I was told this is a different culture. Most customers here are vegetarians.

But I didn’t know how to make Japanese food vegetarian,” he says. He then turned to the temple cooking of Japan’s Buddhist monks and rebuilt the menu. https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/masaharu-morimoto-its-a-ramen-tale/article25261030.ece Recently, Morimoto was back in the city to mark the restaurant’s 22nd anniversary and he admits he almost did not come at all. “When the Taj asked me 22 years ago, I was hesitant.

It was far away from the United States, and I was worried about how I would control the food quality,” he says. What changed his mind was the hotel itself: its reputation, its kitchen and the people running it. “That is Japanese culture.