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Culinary Insights
Totsuki’s Jewel Generation: Who Are They?
Sunday, 3 April 2016
There are many culinary schools located all around the globe, but none can lay claim to the world’s best chefs like Totsuki Culinary Academy can. Located in Tokyo, Japan, Totsuki boasts the best and harshest culinary education in the world, with an intake of almost 1,000 per year.
Less than 1% of that group survive to graduation.
However, this record was broken just this past March when the academy’s 92nd Generation graduated. Not one, not two, but twelve of their students graduated; that is about 1.2% of the students in their generation, which numbered just over a thousand in April 2013. Seven of these students have already begun preparations to open their own restaurants, one has decided to apprentice with an established chef, while the remaining four have returned to work at their families’ respective businesses, which are also involved in the industry.
They are heralded as the gemstones of the culinary world: “The Generation of Jewels”. In this article, we will introduce these talented and determined young chefs who survived the education of the harshest culinary school in Japan.
Nakiri Erina
Unless you’re completely new to the world of cooking, The name “Nakiri” should be familiar to you. The illustrious Nakiri family are widely regarded as royalty in the industry and have held Directorship over Totsuki Academy since its foundation, and so Nakiri Erina has been rooted in the culinary industry from her childhood. Born with the ability known as the “God’s Tongue”, Erina’s word can end a chef’s career in an instant if she finds their dish unacceptable. The “God’s Tongue” grants its user an acute sense of taste and can be a double-edged sword as detecting the tiniest imperfections in a dish can cause its user to lose all wish to eat, as was observed in Erina’s mother, Nakiri Mana.
Thankfully, Erina seems to have escaped this fate, and has thrived in her roles as a chef and Totsuki’s youngest director to date. After an internal power struggle in her first year during which a group of students challenged the then-director to a Rentai Shokugeki, the students came out victorious and Erina was granted directorship over the school. In her second year, Erina came just shy of winning the 2014 Bishoku Leading Under-25 Entrance (BLUE) and was granted the honour of becoming her mother’s personal chef.
Erina has announced the opening of her restaurant, L’amour de la reine, this coming June. Operating on a reservation-only basis, it is believed that all available spaces have been booked until August next year, with a waiting list of over 300 people.
Yukihira Soma
Hailing from a diner in the Sumiredori Shopping District in Tokyo, Yukihira Soma transferred into Totsuki for his first year in high school, passing the transfer exam which was overseen by Erina, a difficult examiner to please because of her ability. His entrance exam was rumoured to have caught the eye of Nakiri Senzaemon, the family’s patriarch, and he continued to stun and surprise throughout his three years at Totsuki.
In the same Rentai Shokugeki that granted Erina her directorship, Soma rose to 1st Seat of Totsuki’s Elite Ten, which is the school’s equivalent of a student council. The Elite Ten are widely considered the best chefs in the school and winning one of the ten seats is considered an incredible achievement. Soma went one step further and maintained his seat throughout his three years at the school. Like Erina, Soma came in second in the 2014 BLUE, but turned down the chance to be the Bookmaster’s personal chef in favour of travelling for the next six months to improve his skills.
Soma has returned to his family’s diner after his graduation from Totsuki, but his peers have dropped hints that he is planning to open his own restaurant right here in Tokyo soon, so stay tuned for more information to come!
Yukihira Shion
Yukihira Shion is Soma’s twin sister, born just minutes after him. As she is a highly private person and extremely difficult to get a hold of, not much is known about her except the bare basics, but the team at Culinary Insights have been able to gain some information from her friends and other acquaintances.
Like her brother, Shion transferred into Totsuki for her first year of high school, wowing the judge (Tsukasa Eishi, who was the 1st Seat at the time) with her dish. She specialises in desserts and has the ice-cold personality to match the impression of her specialty. Sakaki Ryoko, a former Totsuki student who studies fermentation techniques, described the twins like fire and ice. “Shion-chan is more logical and has a cooler head than Soma-kun, but Soma-kun is more outgoing and eye-catching, and Shion-chan likes it that way.” She said, having shared a dorm and classes with both of them for two years.
Like most of the chefs in this article, Shion gained her Elite Ten seat due to the Rentai Shokugeki in their cohort’s first year. She maintained her position (2nd Seat) with ease throughout her three years there, and Nakiri Erina has said that the Elite Ten administration matters were streamlined greatly due to her systematic and efficient nature. “Most of our generation were hyper-focused on our cooking, and sometimes that meant that we fell behind on our paperwork. Shion was able to set up a system that helped us keep up while being able to do what we enjoyed.” She said. Shion was the one who beat Erina and Soma to win the 2014 BLUE, though she rejected the offer of becoming Nakiri Mana’s personal chef due to unknown reasons.
Before her graduation, she began preparations to open her own patisserie, which launched last Monday. Many of the food items for sale there are personally created and developed by Shion, and she has a dedicated team of sous chefs to help her run the store. The patisserie also accepts custom orders which are handled by Shion herself, and the waiting list for this is rumoured to contain renowned chefs such as Shinomiya Kojiro and Inui Hinako.
Hayama Akira
Hayama Akira rose from 5th to 3rd Seat of the Elite Ten in his third year, though his position regularly changed as Shokugeki were held with his position as the prize. Competition between the 3rd to 6th seats was high and the people who held those seats regularly rotated among themselves as Shokugeki were won and lost. However, it was ultimately Akira who graduated as the 92nd Generation’s 3rd Seat.
Akira has a superhuman ability of his own; while it has no official name, it is widely known that he has an acute sense of smell and is a master of aroma and spices, which are where his specialty lies. He can identify all the types of spices being used from across a competition hall and can tell when too much or too little spice is used from smell alone.
Akira is also an adept teacher; having been adopted as a child by Shiomi Jun, who runs a research society at Totsuki, he grew up listening to her lectures on everything and anything spice-related, and at the end of his first year in the high school division, he began giving lessons to interested students. Even after his graduation, he occasionally goes back to hold lectures in his free time.
Akira is in a relationship with fellow graduate Arato Hisako, and their combined restaurant, Aromatherapy, will open in August. Aromatherapy is a combination of their specialties and works to serve dishes that are both aromatic and delicious yet packed with medicinal benefits and properties.
Kurokiba Ryo
A master of all things seafood, Kurokiba Ryo graduated as the 92nd Generation’s 4th Seat. Having grown up in a port town in Denmark where he worked in one of the local pubs as a chef and any weakness would have seen him kicked out onto the streets, Ryo became a formidable chef at the mere age of ten. It was also around this time that he became Nakiri Alice’s aide.
Besides this, not much is known about him before he entered Totsuki’s middle school division. Ryo became known as someone who was rough around the edges and blunt in his speech but generally did not bother with other students. In his first year in high school, he joined the students who challenged Totsuki’s directorship but was eliminated from the competition early on due to biased judging. After the group won the Rentai Shokugeki, he participated in the mass Shokugeki to decide the Elite Ten placements and attained the position of 6th Seat and rose to 4th Seat in his third year. Ryo is rumoured to be able to tell the freshness and quality of all types of seafood. He is able to pick out the best seafood from a wide selection and regularly visits the fish markets in his area.
Post-graduation, he returned to Denmark and his own restaurant, Havbrand, which is Danish for “Ocean Fire”, launched yesterday. The restaurant serves mouth-watering seafood dishes with its signature dish using squid ink as an ingredient.
Nakiri Alice
Known as the “Heaven-Sent Child of Molecular Gastronomy”, Nakiri Alice (92nd Generation, 5th Seat) is Erina’s cousin. She moved to Denmark with her parents when she was five years old to study molecular gastronomy and became known as an expert by the time she was nine years old. It was after gaining this fame that she sought out Kurokiba Ryo, having heard of his abilities by word of mouth, and convinced him to become her aide.
As a member of the Nakiri family, Alice has had access to a wide range of resources from an early age. As the daughter of Nakiri Soe, who founded the Nakiri International Organisation which specialises in culinary research, Alice has a unique outlook on the culinary arts that she shared with us in an interview last week.
“To be a successful chef in the modern world, a chef must exercise both the artistic and culinary aspects of cooking, and I show this in every single one of my dishes. For example, a dish that contains egg should not just show the final product. How can I display its original form? This is a question that I ask myself as I make my dishes.” She said, when asked about how she comes up with her creations, which are known to be otherworldly in appearance and taste. As another representation of her belief, Alice has been trying to develop new machines and technology to further the progress of the culinary world.
Post-graduation, Alice moved back to Denmark to be closer to her family and began working in her father’s company as the head of a new department that focuses on molecular gastronomy.
Takumi Aldini
Takumi Aldini grew up in Florence, Italy, in a diner called Trattoria Aldini. When he was about to enter middle school, his uncle, the owner of the trattoria, sent him and his brother to enter Totsuki. Both of them took the entrance exam and passed, and similarly entered the high school division by passing their middle school exams.
In the Rentai Shokugeki in his first year, Takumi was eliminated in a challenge against Saito Somei, who was then the 5th Seat. Eventually, in the Shokugeki that was held to determine the new Elite Ten placements, Takumi attained the position of 8th Seat, and graduated as the 92nd Generation’s 6th Seat.
Takumi is a master of using the mezzaluna, a knife with a curved shape that has Italian origins. It was this mastery and his lighter features that gave him the name “Lunar Prince”. Having had experience with the mezzaluna before his enrolment, Takumi developed his technique over the years and perfected it during his Stagiaire in his first year. It is his utensil of choice, and he uses it in a variety of ways.
Takumi returned to Trattoria Aldini after his graduation and took over the position of head chef there. His prowess has caused the diner to rise in popularity, and reservations need to be made if you want to ensure yourself a seat.
Tadokoro Megumi
If Nakiri Erina was Totsuki’s Queen, then Tadokoro Megumi would be its youngest Princess. Kind and warm-hearted, Megumi graduated as the 92nd Generation’s 7th Seat after rising from 10th Seat, a position she attained in her first year in the same Rentai Shokugeki that granted a majority of the 92nd Generation Elite Ten their seats.
Megumi focuses on creating dishes that give its consumers a sense of belonging and comfort, without losing the fine dining experience. At the end of her first year, Megumi took some time off from lessons and travelled the world for a few months, studying the different types of cuisine and the techniques used in different countries. Her travels gave her the knowledge she needed to appeal to people of different ethnicities and cultures all across the globe.
Immediately after graduation, Megumi travelled to France to begin her apprenticeship under the Magician of Légumes, Shinomiya Kojiro, who is also a renowned Totsuki graduate. Many are looking forward to seeing her in Shino’s, and equally excited to see what her plans are once she finishes her apprenticeship!
Ibusaki Shun
Ibusaki Shun won the position of the Elite Ten’s 8th Seat in his third year at Totsuki after winning a series of Shokugeki against other Elite Ten hopefuls. Calm and collected, Shun is known to rarely participate in arguments and to keep to himself. It was also due to his unflappable nature that he escaped the series of Shokugeki among the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th Seats.
Shun specialises in Smoke Cooking, and besides the smoked basics such as cheese and jerky, he has shown much more interesting applications of smoke, like salt, potatoes and boiled eggs. In his Totsuki days, Shun personally cut any wood that he needed for his dishes in order to ensure quality.
Shun is currently preparing to launch his own restaurant, slated to open in July. Based on his specialty, we can expect that the restaurant will focus on smoked cooking and may even use smoke in unique ways to serve their food.
Mito Ikumi
Mito Ikumi attained the position of 9th seat in her third year and held it until graduation. There have been rumours that she participated in Shokugeki frequently with the 3rd to 6th seats, but nothing has been confirmed.
Ikumi is the heir to the Mito Group, which is famed for their involvement in the meat industry and has the skills to match. She is able to tell the internal temperature of a piece of meat just by holding it up to her lips, understandably specialises in dishes using meat. She is able to decide the perfect cut and piece of meat to use for any situation, and her skills have been honed ever since she began learning about the industry as an eight-year-old observing her father as he worked and cooked.
In her third year at Totsuki, Ikumi began taking more classes that focused on business and administration, fostering rumours that she would be joining her father’s company. Those rumours have proved to be true - Ikumi returned to work at the Mito Group immediately after graduation, and has not shown signs of doing anything else, though in an interview with Culinary Insights, she hinted that she would move to Italy in the future, sparking unconfirmed rumours of her relationship with fellow graduate Takumi Aldini.
Arato Hisako
Born into the Arato family, which is famous for its prowess in Chinese Medicine, Arato Hisako surprised her family by announcing her intention to become a chef when she was a child. She became Erina’s secretary throughout her school years and followed her loyally. It was Erina who inspired Hisako to enter Totsuki and become a chef.
Tapping on her family’s extensive medical knowledge, Hisako’s specialty in Totsuki was Medicinal Cooking, which incorporated her family’s techniques and spice blends to create dishes that were both invigorating yet delicious. Perhaps as a nod to her family background, or perhaps a representation of their influence on her, Hisako’s dishes lean towards a more Chinese style and use ingredients that are often seen in Chinese cuisine.
Post-graduation, Hisako combined her knowledge and skills with that of her partner and fellow graduate, Hayama Akira, to launch the restaurant Aromatherapy, which will open in August.
Isami Aldini
Besides holding the record for most graduates, this generation also seems to have the largest number of relatives in one generation. Isami Aldini was born just minutes after Takumi and shares a close bond with him. At the end of his second year, he and Takumi became famed for their skills in Duo Shokugeki, in which pairs of competitors would compete against each other. They were unmatched during their Totsuki years, amassing a record-breaking 250-win streak.
Like his brother, Isami specialises in Italian cuisine and has mastered the mezzaluna, which is difficult to achieve. Isami has said that he works best as a sous chef and has been groomed for the position ever since he was a child. “I resented it for some time when I was younger.” He said, “Because it felt like I was always coming in second place. But I lost that mentality early on in Totsuki when I realised that I wanted to help my brother’s dishes shine all the more.”
Isami has returned to the trattoria in Italy with his brother and plans to continue cooking there.
With such a variety of stories and specialties, Totsuki’s latest group of graduates are sure to take the world by storm. We at Culinary Insights look forward to what they will bring to the world of Cooking and the Culinary Arts! Stay tuned for more updates on Totsuki’s best and brightest, the Generation of Jewels!