Chef Mitsuharu Tsumura is Still Hungry at No 1

Mitsuharu ‘Micha’ Tsumura has barely been in Mumbai for a few hours when we meet, having arrived from Peru that very morning, but there is little evidence of a man who has just endured a long-haul flight. At 11am, he had already been to the gym; he has now freshened up, attended a hectic welcome lunch, may or may not have taken a power nap and is back at work, preparing for the two-night dinner that will mark Maido’s first Indian appearance at The St Regis Mumbai, as part of Masters of Marriott Bonvoy and Culinary Culture, in association with American Express. There is something incredulous and almost comic about the velocity of it all. Most people would be battling jet lag; Tsumura appears to have negotiated with it and come out on top. Much like how he’s done with his career.

It is perhaps the most revealing introduction to a master chef who, even after taking Maido to the summit of global gastronomy, seems constitutionally incapable of standing still.

In June 2025, the retaurant, known for its refreshing flavours of Nikkei cuisine, was named No 1 on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. For most chefs, the distinction might represent a moment to pause and savour the achievement. “Some people thought, okay, so we made it, and we’re going to take it easy,” he says. “But it was the total opposite.” The team, he says, is “more motivated than ever.”

Barely had the No 1 announcement settled than Tsumura and his team were opening the Maido Hub, a research-and-development space just 20 metres from the restaurant in Lima. Part laboratory, part test kitchen, part private dining room, it is where ideas can be pulled apart, rebuilt and pushed into stranger, more exciting territory. “Top-of-the-line technology to do whatever we imagine,” he says with a grin. The name is deliberate, too: the Hub is intended as “a hub of connections, a place to bring people together and share what they are creating.”

For Tsumura, becoming No 1 was never the end goal. If anything, it removed a constraint. “For me, becoming number one, of course, is important and it’s a way of making a dream come true,” says the pioneering maverick. “But at the same time, it’s a way of saying, okay, so now, we’re going to be able to do whatever we want, really.”

That last word—really—is key. Because what Tsumura means by doing whatever he wants is not simply adding another restaurant to the portfolio. It is about pushing past the familiar, testing new formats and refusing to let Maido become imprisoned by its own success. “Push more boundaries, explore more, not just stick with Nikkei,” he says.

Today, Japanese-Peruvian cuisine has become one of the most recognisable and sought-after culinary hybrids in the world. But Tsumura was thinking about its history, identity and place in the global conversation long before the wider dining world caught up. When he was approached about writing a book on Maido, he proposed a different idea. “People don’t understand Nikkei cuisine. So, let’s first start from the beginning.” In 2014, he co-wrote Nikkei Es Perú, a book documenting how the cuisine came to exist and speaking to many of its early pioneers.

“Nikkei doesn’t mean the melding of Japanese and Peruvian flavours. It could be anywhere in the world.” It is fundamentally about Japanese heritage travelling, taking root and evolving somewhere else. “You can have Nikkei in India,” he says, describing the way generations can carry that heritage into new cultures.

Maido played its own role in making that distinction visible. Before it, Tsumura says, restaurants tended to be classified as either Japanese or Peruvian. “We didn’t understand that,” he says. Because cuisines, in his worldview, are rarely as neatly compartmentalised as menus and restaurant categories suggest.

His analogy is simple: look at Indian food itself. Beneath what we call a single cuisine is a sprawling history of ingredients, techniques, migrations and influences. Peru, he argues, is no different. Nikkei is simply one particularly vivid expression of that exchange. For Tsumura, Nikkei food has to evolve; it will retain its Japanese-Peruvian essence while adapting to the flavours of wherever it goes. He draws a parallel to Chinese food in Japan, Chinese food in Peru, and the endless versions of Italian cuisine around the world. “It’s not disrespecting the cuisine. It’s just like taking it and making it yours, in a way, the way you like to have it.”

That belief in movement extends to everything he cooks. He talks about younger diners wanting to experiment, about sushi having travelled far beyond its traditional associations with rice and seafood (that now accommodates everything from wagyu and foie gras to caviar), about palates becoming more adventurous and diners seeking “new sensations.” And then comes the line that could almost function as his culinary manifesto: “Tradition wouldn’t exist, or wouldn’t be able to exist, without innovation and vice versa.”

If there is one thing that becomes apparent in conversation, it is that Tsumura is far more interested in the next question than the previous answer. He is already thinking

about Tori, his wood-fired chicken concept; about sauces that can take Peruvian flavours into people’s homes; about how to make his cuisine more accessible; about new restaurants, new countries, new formats. “How can I reach more people?” he asks.

The chicken restaurant is particularly revealing. With an average check of around $7, Tori is deliberately democratic. Rotisserie chicken, wood fire, Peruvian sauces: food that can travel. “Who doesn’t eat chicken?” he asks, laughing. “That’s the question.”

It is the same instinct behind the sauces. If someone loves ají de gallina, papa a la huancaína or tiradito but cannot easily source the ingredients to make them at home, why should the experience stop at the restaurant door? It took five years to develop the sauces to the point where they could be exported without refrigeration, but now they are beginning to travel too.

The ambition, then, is not merely to make the world’s best restaurant. It is to make Peruvian food—and the ideas behind it—harder to ignore.

And yet, beneath all the expansion and experimentation is a surprisingly private habit of self-evaluation. Every night before bed, Tsumura says, he analyses his entire day. Not just the dishes. Everything. How he addressed an issue. How he handled a mistake. Whether a flavour could have been better. Whether he could have done something differently. “You know,” he says, “you don’t need anybody to tell you what you are doing right or wrong because you yourself already know it.” The standard is simple: if you know you could have done something better, do it better the next time.

The downside, he admits, is that the brain does not always know when to clock off. His fiancée, Mariana, occasionally has to intervene. “Stop. Click the off button now,” she tells him. His response? “How can I control this? My brain, my mind, I cannot control it.”

However, ask him what he would do with a day with absolutely nothing to do, and his answer is unexpectedly uncomplicated. “The beach, for sure. Just the ocean, perhaps a drink, and fishing.”

At home, too, his cooking is gloriously unceremonious. A quick pasta. Marinated chicken with potatoes and vegetables. A ham and cheese sandwich. “I don’t put so much effort into cooking [for himself],” he says. The ‘serious’ cooking, he suggests, is for other people.

What he really loves is a barbecue. Not a quick dinner, but the long, languorous kind that takes over an entire afternoon. He lights the charcoal, gathers friends and family, pours drinks and feeds everyone “in small bites.” Four hours becomes six. “I can spend the whole afternoon just throwing things in the grill,” he says with excitement. It is perhaps the most perfect ending to the portrait: the chef who has conquered the highest reaches of fine dining ultimately wanting little more than fire, food, friends and the sea.

But for now, there is no beach in sight. There is Mumbai, a packed schedule, two nights of cooking ahead and an entire country whose food he has only just begun to discover. He is already excited about the seafood, particularly the crab he had not realised was so distinctive here. His spice tolerance, he assures us, is very high.

Judging by the menu he has brought with him, Mumbai is about to get a rather spectacular introduction to the Tsumura universe. Across the two-night collaboration, the menu (vegetarian and non-vegetarian) takes diners through Tsumura’s Peruvian-Japanese imagination: Peje-Rey, silverside fish in two textures with nori tsukudani and ponzu; Butifarra, smoked paiche ham with ají dulce, melipona honey and karashi; Cebiche, with pistachio cream, bivalves and leche de tigre; and Toro Tartar, pairing fatty tuna belly with avocado, sushi rice and sea urchin cream. The menu moves into Sudado, grilled black cod with clams and a rich sudado reduction, and Baby Lamb, a northern-style stew with coriander, bean foam and loche cracker. A delight to anyone with a pulse and a penchant for the deliciously unexpected.

At ₹60,000 a head, the two-night experience is already sold out—a fittingly feverish reception for Maido’s first appearance in India. Tsumura, meanwhile, has barely unpacked, barely paused and certainly barely slept. For a man who says his mind has no off button, perhaps this is not jet lag at all. Perhaps this is simply how Tsumura travels: at full tilt—cooking, imagining, creating, and already reaching for the next horizon…