Noriyuki Sugie
Posted on 14. Jan, 2010 by admin in Chefs
Iron Nori
www.ironnori.com
A native to Ibaraki prefecture in Japan, Chef Noriyuki Sugie‘s entry into cooking was serendipitous. A budding musician at the age of 15, he took a job in Tokyo at at California style restaurant in order to support his passion as a guitar player in a rock band, which was heavily influenced by American and British music. Upon completing high school, he entered Japan’s prestigious Tsuji Culinary School in Osaka. Sugie soon discovered he was as fervent about cooking as he was about music.
Sugie found many similarities between cooking and music, all about harmony. Orchestrating a meal is like creating an unforgettable score. Presentation is like a mesmerizing solo. Like any performance, you have to put on a good show.
In the beginning, Sugie was also strongly influenced by the traditional Japanese cooking as well as frequent forays with his family into fine dining establishments that offered Chinese, Japanese, French and Euro-Western cuisine. He recalled that dining in Tokyo had a sense of occasion, getting dressed up, seeing and being seen, and the food presentation was pure theater.
Sugie melded his traditional Asian-style technique with classic French training while furthering his studies at Tsuji Culinary School in Chateau de l’Eclair, France. He perfected his French culinary skills and knowledge of French wines over a five year period while working at three Michelin-starred restaurants in Bordeaux, the three-starred L’Aubergade, the one-starred Le Moulin de Martorey and the two-starred Hostellerie de Vieux. In 1996, Sugie’s culinary curiosity was piqued by the arrival of American cuisine to the forefront of the global culinary pantheon, thus inspiring the next destination on his culinary odyssey: the world-famous Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago. There he served as chef de partie.
After two years, Sugie was ready for a new adventure and headed to Sydney, Australia to work at one of the city’s top establishments, Tetsuya’s, as sous chef. During his two-year tenure, Tetsuys’s was named “Restaurant of the Year” twice by the widely read Sydney Morning Herald.
Over a 10-year period, Sugie’s culinary scope continued to evolve and he grew eager to venture beyond the kitchen. Opening Restaurant VII in Sydney as chef and partner exposed him to restaurant management and provided a stage to showcase a culmination of his culinary talent with complete artistic control. Restaurant VII, with its amazingly intricate, sumptuous French-Japanese cuisine and theater-like service, brought Sugie rave reviews, celebrity status and capacity crowds. Shortly after opening, the establishment was named “Best New Restaurant” by the Sydney Morning Herald.
After the success at Restaurant VII, Sugie continued to satiate admiring food enthusiasts while participating in Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group’s guest chef program, where he cooked numerous promotional dinners at the Bangkok, Hong Kong, London and Bermuda properties. After a world wide search, Sugie was selected by Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group as chef de cuisine for Asiate, the 90-seat signature restaurant located on the 35th floor sky lobby of Mandarin Oriental, New York.
Sugie’s approach for Asiate was artistic and modern, yet elegant and subtle. His eclectic dishes captured the elements of French and Japanese cuisine and his presentation style reflected the harmony inherent to every aspect of the hotel.
After 4 years at Asiate where Sugie earned numerous praises and marvelous reviews during his time, the success led him to contemplate about starting up his own venture and spread his creative works even more in the global scene, both cooking and beyond for various projects under a unique brand of IRONNORI which is IRON + NORI with “IRON” being the backward spelling of “NORI”….
The following is a list of recipes by Noriyuki Sugie:
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