The Chef

The Chef's story:

Nao Motohashi taught herself to cook in Tokyo, skipping formal training and building her instincts in neighbourhood kitchens and pop-ups. In 2021 she opened JULIA, a restaurant that quickly became one of Japan's most talked-about tables by combining Japanese ingredients with French discipline and a restless, seasonal point of view. Wanting to step outside the pressures of Tokyo's fine-dining world and cook in a city that tolerates experiment, she relocated to Berlin and settled in Kreuzberg. There she found a different kind of freedom: open-air markets, diverse palates and a crowd that treats food as culture as much as craft. Berlin gave her room to keep evolving JULIA's language while staying rooted in the precision she learned in Japan.

The Chef's links:

• JULIA
• NARISAWA
• DEN
• Florilège
• Bird Land Ginza
• Tsukiji Outer Market (Tokyo's historic food market)
• Toyosu Market (world's largest fish market)
• Tokyo Convention & Visitors Bureau (official Tokyo tourism and food resources)
• My Concierge Japan (high-end restaurant booking service)
• OMAKASE (Japan's leading premium restaurant booking engine)
• TableCheck (widely used Tokyo restaurant reservations)
• Pocket Concierge (fine-dining reservations)