20/07/2026
Meet the chef behind the delicacies 🍣
My name is Chef Miyamoto, and my story starts a long way from Johannesburg.
I was born in Matsusaka, Japan, and trained at a chef's school in Ise. From there I learned my craft in hotels and in French and Japanese restaurants, absorbing the discipline and detail that Japanese cooking is built on.
In 1983, the owner of The Bamboo Inn, the very first Japanese restaurant in South Africa, invited me to come and chef for them. I said yes to the adventure, and I never looked back.
A few years later, in 1988, I began catering for Johannesburg's Japanese community. In the years that followed, I served as Executive Chef at some of the country's best-known Japanese kitchens: Toto-Uma, Yo Sushi in Sandown, Wasabi in Cape Town and Koi in Sandton, before opening our own catering company in 2006.
Since then, my kitchen has grown well beyond sushi, into full Japanese cuisine and fusion catering, from intimate dinners to large events. Along the way, I've been proud to chef for the Japanese Embassy and Mitsubishi Corporation, and some of my most recent restaurant work was as a consulting executive, training and development chef with Kol Izakhaya in Hyde Park and Zioux, part of the Marble Group.
Four decades on, I'm still doing what I love most: Japanese cooking at its best, and teaching and training others in the art of sushi.
