KOJI KAGAWA
Corporate Sushi Chef SUSHISAMBA Restaurants
My favorite SUSHISAMBA dish: Chilean Sea Bass Anticuchos
My favorite SUSHISAMBA drink: Mojito
SUSHISAMBA dish I helped create: Samba Sashimi and countless Sushi Samba rolls
My cooking style in a nutshell: Fast, with a highly skilled technique
Chef Koji Kagawa has played a major role in creating some of SUSHISAMBA's most popular sushi dishes. He particularly enjoys creating dishes with soft-shell crabs, which he notes are not available fresh in Japan. "I like to incorporate spices and come up with unusual and interesting dishes," Koji says.
Koji’s global travels have contributed to his culinary creativity. He has worked in Paris at the haute gastronomie landmark Apicus, quickly building a following, especially amongst Japanese tourists. While living in Europe, Koji traveled to as many locales as possible, tasting and learning from Amsterdam to Rome to London.
As SUSHISAMBA’s Corporate Sushi Chef since 2007, Koji has ably spearheaded innovative sushi creations at each one of the restaurant’s locations.
The Backstory
As a child growing up in the small Japanese city of Takamatsu, Koji ate out more in a week than many kids do in a year. Thanks to his mother's busy schedule as a realtor and later a banker, she rarely had the time or the energy to cook at home, so Koji and his two siblings were the youngest regulars at many of Takamatsu's restaurants and eateries. "We ate everywhere, and got to try just about every kind of cuisine," says Koji. "It opened my eyes to the many different worlds of food."
Chef Koji Kagawa Highlights:
- Member of SUSHISAMBA team since 2000
Cultivated his passion for music as a rapper in the band Soul Flower, one of Tokyo’s preeminent bands in the mid 90's
- Arrived in the U.S. at age of 18 to work at his cousin's Japanese restaurant in Brooklyn
Returned to Tokyo to work at Restaurant Evelyne for three years, one of Tokyo's finest French restaurants- Took job as assistant sushi chef at SUSHISAMBA in 2000, appointed Executive Sushi Chef in 2003
Appointed Corporate Sushi Chef in 2007
