Akihiro Izumi, popularly known as Chef Aki, began his cooking career in Tokyo at the tender age of 17. The 45-year-old chef has held senior positions in popular hotel kitchens in Hong Kong, Los Angeles, New York, and currently, Bangkok, where he is head chef at JW Marriott’s Tsu Japanese restaurant.

Aki brings a wide range of specialty dishes to Tsu, and also heads his own traditional Japanese cuisine cooking course at the hotel. James Vernon talks to Aki about traditional, seasonal, and regional Japanese foods at Tsu, as well as his traditional Japanese cooking course.

James Vernon (JV): You’re renowned for your teaching and for preparing particularly good ‘traditional’ Japanese food at Tsu restaurant and in your monthly cooking courses. What do you feel is truly ‘traditional’ Japanese food?

Akihiro Izumi (AI): Well, sushi, sashimi, grilled fish and tempura, are traditional Japanese foods. Adding miso soup and rice will give you a complete Japanese meal. It’s very basic stuff. Sushi first appeared about 100 years ago, but some of this traditional stuff is actually quite new in the scheme of things.

The course is advertised as a ‘traditional Japanese’ cooking course, but I also introduce some more modern items due to the nature of the participants. We usually have a mixture of Westerners and Thais, so more often than not I teach the students how to make sushi, hot and spicy Japanese-style noodles, wafu salad (traditional Japanese-style salad); and then our executive pastry chef will come down and teach participants how to make some simple deserts.

In addition, to ‘liven’ things up a bit, we teach participants how to make some of our original sake cocktails (which are on sale at Tsu sake bar). One of the bartenders will come along to oversee that part of the course. After that, we sit down, have a meal together, and enjoy the drinks! We also present some souvenirs to the participants, including a course certificate, along with a Tsu apron or another nice item to remember the course by.

JV: It sounds like a great deal of fun for everyone involved!

AI: It is. It can really be a lot of fun, although we also get some pretty serious students from time to time who write down everything verbatim. It really depends on how you approach it.

The entire course lasts about three-and-a-half hours, running from about 9 am-12.30 pm. It’s quite common for housewives, couples, and members within the same family to enroll on this course.

JV: There are lots of restaurants offering sushi now in Bangkok. Tell me, what makes good, traditional Japanese sushi?

AI: To be honest, I used to make very traditional-style sushi early on in my cooking career (in Japan). Then I moved to New York, and each country has its own ‘taste’ when it comes to Japanese food items, you know? So actually, I can’t really bring a ‘true’ traditional taste to Thailand, just as I couldn’t really take it to Hong Kong. In that sense, I have to change my cooking style, just a bit, for each location. And if I prepared truly traditional sushi for guests here, I don’t think many people would enjoy them!

In Japan, the rice used in traditional sushi is hard, and it is not sweet to taste. But here in Thailand, people like soft rice, and they tend to like pretty much everything a bit sweeter. However, that doesn’t mean the ingredients used here are lower quality; we fly in 90% of our seafood (tuna, yellowtail, crab etc) from Tsukiji, Tokyo’s famous seafood market, twice a week.  All the salmon is flown in from Norway.

I’ve really enjoyed working around the world. I like working with different kinds of people and coming up with new twists for food items. It’s interesting, just as different countries have different cultures and peoples, they also have their own specific likes and dislikes when it comes to Japanese cuisine.

JV: I see, that’s interesting to hear.

Traditional Japanese food also tends to be seasonal, and it varies from region to region. Is this represented in your menu?

AI: Yes, it is. We almost always have seasonal and/or regional specialties within sections of our menu. For example, last winter we had a Hokkaido promotion, which featured several specialty seafood items from that region, which are best enjoyed during that time of year.

Right now, we have a tuna promotion, where we select different parts of the fish, and prepare dishes accordingly.

I change the main menu on a monthly basis so people don’t get bored with the same items.

Train: The JW Marriott Bangkok is located at 4 Sukhumvit Soi 2. The hotel is a two-minute walk from BTS Ploenchit station.