Chef’s Table: Victor Garvey interviews top Japanese actress Yoh Yoshida
Japanese actor Yoh Yoshida is interviewed by her friend Victor Garvey, the restaurateur behind two Michelin-starred Notting Hill restaurants. They tuck into a tasting menu at his MATER1A to talk careers, inspiration and paying respects to Richard III
The Meal:
- Tomato jelly noodles
- Amuse bouches
- Tuna sashimi
- Roasted scallop
- Wagyu with miso and morels
- Cherry with almonds and chocolate
Yoh Yoshida: Hi Victor, it’s so nice to see you again. It must be six months since we last caught up!
Victor Garvey: Yeah, this will be your first time in MATER1A. You’re in for a treat. What brings you to London?
YY: It’s a funny story – I have been playing a series of Shakespeare characters on the stage in Japan: Hamlet, Brutus and Richard III. After that I wanted to come here to pay tribute to the real Richard III, so I have been in Leicester to visit his grave at the cathedral.
VG: Oh wow, that’s so cool. I don’t know many people that would travel so far to pay their respects like that. I’ve never gone and paid my respects at Paul Bocuse’s grave. Is it normal in Japan, to go to all that effort?
YY: Not really, it’s quite unusual but it’s something I really wanted to do. I felt a real connection to the character, an empathy for him, which is strange because I’m known in Japan for playing more honourable people, and Richard is one of the great villains!
VG: It must be a really different experience to do Shakespeare in Japanese. I can’t imagine being able to keep the rhythm that Shakespeare originally intended in a language that takes longer to speak. If I say a sentence in English, it might be five words and take two seconds but the same sentence in Japanese is 12 words and takes six seconds. Japanese sentences are very descriptive, and they always have to have a place and a time – that’s just the way it works, right? So when you’re doing something as classical as Shakespeare, is it difficult to get the timing right?
YY: Yes, it’s different. The translation I was working on was quite modern, similar to the way we speak now. Sometimes it can work in your favour though. Take the famous line: “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” – in Japanese the word for horse is “uma” which leaves you with an open mouth shape, which makes it easier to convey the feeling to the audience.
VG: So Yoshida-san, do you remember where we met?
YY: Of course! I was in London for the Film Festival, promoting A Pale View of Hills, an adaptation of the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. I was in a Japanese izakaya with the director Ishikawa-san for the after-party and we got talking. I remember being a bit scared because of all your tattoos. They are becoming a little more normal in Japan but for a long time they were associated with criminals.
VG: Yeah, the first time I visited Japan about 20 years ago I only had one tattoo but they still wouldn’t let me go in the onsen! The restaurant where we met is called Jugemu and it’s the best izakaya-style place in London. My good friend Kikuchi-san owns it. I used to go there once a week and I still go when I have some spare time. I was just sitting there minding my own business drinking beer when suddenly 15 or 20 Japanese people came in. I moved to the back of the bar, almost in the kitchen, and you came and sat beside me. I was just drunk enough to introduce myself. My daughter lives and breathes Harajuku style and anime so we got talking about that. I had no idea that you were famous until the manager at Jugemu came over and said you’re like the Jennifer Lawrence of Japan.
YY: And I had no idea you were a Michelin starred chef – it’s a nice way to start a friendship, we just bonded as people. We must have chatted for about three hours.
VG: Our schedules actually work when you’re back in Japan, too – as a chef I work late so we usually chat at one o’clock in the morning here, which is early in the morning in Japan. There’s a chance we might end up seeing a lot more of each other soon: my daughter wants to go to culinary school in Japan. She’s 14 and she wants to leave school when she’s 17 to learn the trade. I said, ‘No problem, just show me good grades’. If everything works out I’ll probably move back for six months and stay with her – you can take me around Japan like I’ve taken you around London. Because visiting Japan as a normal gaijin and visiting Japan with Yoshida-san is very different, I imagine.
YY: We will make a strange pair wandering around Tokyo together but there are some restaurants I’d love to take you to. I have so much love for sushi.
VG: I love sushi too. When my daughter and I are together, it’s all sushi all the time. I love everything about it, but I’m a bit bored of tuna and hamachi. So if I’m eating sushi in Japan, I want something exciting and different.
YY: I know some places you would like…
VG: Of course you do, you eat at the best restaurants in Japan, right? It makes cooking for you here at MATER1A quite daunting. My cuisine is very modern, very fusion, so I was worried that someone like you who’s very knowledgeable might think I was going to shit all over Japanese cuisine! It’s a relief to see you enjoying it.
YY: I knew I would enjoy it. I knew from when we first met that you were an open-minded person and you can see that in your food. You can see your cooking comes with a great love and respect for Japanese cuisine.
Often Japanese-Western fusion feels contrived but this is something else entirely. It’s also funny you say you might spend some time in Tokyo – one of my ambitions is to study acting in London. I’d love to study at LAMDA.
VG: Is there a role you’d love to play?
YY: There is – I’d love to play Carol, the title character in the movie starring Cate Blanchett. One day I would like to star in a Japanese version of that film. I have so much admiration for Cate Blanchett and she is amazing in that film. On the surface she plays this strong, intelligent woman but inside she is very fragile, vulnerable even. That’s the kind of role I love to play. What about your career – tell me what you have been up to.
VG: I’ve been so busy Yoshida-san. Since we met last October I opened MATER1A, which has been doing really well and getting great reviews. Then we relocated my other restaurant Sola from Soho to Notting Hill. That’s all up and running and it’s really great, very different from the original – it’s smaller and more intimate but it’s the best food I’ve ever made. I’m feeling so creative at the moment, just spending hours in the kitchen, coming up with new dishes.
YY: Remind me what brought you to Japan…
VG: I was there from 2011 to 2012 on an exchange programme. I was working at the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas and they sent me and a small cohort to the Park Hyatt in Tokyo. I was a young, broke chef but I had a bit of pocket money to go out and the restaurants there changed the way I thought about food.
The culture in Japan is to hyper-specialise. Even at a neighbourhood counter restaurant you’ll find someone who does something at a level you can’t get your head around. There was one place we went that specialised in Spanish mackerel and I’m not kidding it was the best Spanish mackerel I’ve ever had. Everything was just absolutely perfect. There’s a reason Japan has so many Michelin stars and it’s all about quality of ingredients and consistency.
At some point I’d love to open a restaurant in Japan. It calls me. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking I need to go back. I have six beers and I look on my phone to see when the next flight leaves for Tokyo. I wouldn’t open a sushi restaurant – I’ll leave that to the masters. Maybe something Spanish. Don’t worry, you’ll be invited to the opening!
• For more information on MATER1A visit the website here; For Sola go to the website here; Yoshida-san’s latest film Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! directed by Josef Kubota Wladyka is out now in the US