John Sugimura Email & Phone Number

This is the beautiful side of pain.This is personal. 杉村 “Sansei” Japanese American洗う “Nisei” Japanese Trained Chef祝値 Celebrating Japanese Values警備 Guarding Japanese Nuances料理 Japanese Roots Cooking横著 Japanese Yokocho Food I am a third generation Japanese American and second-generation professionally trained chef preparing truly authentic and complex Japanese food with over 10 years of rigorous experience. I am celebrating Japanese values and nuances in roots cooking; I cook to reconnect to my Japanese grandmother chef who lost everything when she and my dad were unjustly incarcerated during WW2 in the Tule Lake internment camp. They experienced incarceration behind barbed wire while living in barracks. Four-and-a-half years later, my family left the war camp with 2 pieces of luggage.I meet the “SILVER” standards for “Certification of Cooking Skills for Japanese Cuisine in Foreign Countries” by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. At the Japanese Embassy in Washington, D.C., it's being referred to as "Japanese Cuisine Skills Certification Guidelines.” To be eligible for the “Certification of Cooking Skills for Japanese Cuisine in Foreign Countries”: I meet the Japanese nationality requirement; I have practical experience in Japanese restaurants located in Japan; and I trained at the prestigious Japanese culinary school the Sushi Institute of America, completing lessons, and acquiring culturally authentic knowledge. I am a chef cooking Japanese classics with true spirit, fresh flavors, and ingredients in various settings across the United States. I am skilled to uphold the values of traditional Japanese cuisine, known as “Washoku” and skilled to reverse widespread misperception that Japanese authorities would like to correct. In 2013, “Washoku” became one of only a handful of cuisines to be recognized by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage.My life-long passion for my Japanese American heritage erupted from a single instance of racism in the 8th grade that forever changed me. I live with the sting of racism today. I am a daring advocate and soldier with the courage for the culturally accurate retelling of the Japanese American experience. I became a skilled chef to celebrate and guard the values of traditional Japanese cuisine through my travel in Japan and advanced culinary training. Eating my cuisine is like eating in my grandmother’s restaurant in the 1930s. It is the ultimate expression of flavors, colors, and cooking methods, coming together in an authentic experience that is one-of-a-kind.