Dubai-it: Two Japanese chefs, Hisao Ueda and Takashi Namekata, on the delights of Wagyu beef, Sushi and Omakase

Dubai: When Chef Hisao Ueda arrived in Dubai in 2011, Japanese Wagyu was still a rarity. “It was not famous in Dubai, Wagyu, Japanese beef,” he remembers. “Fifteen years before, import was difficult. Price was also high. “Now many restaurants use Japanese beef because import is very easy,” he says. “Not only Wagyu beef, fish, vegetables, Japanese ingredients — now easily available in Dubai.” In fact, he sources directly from Tokyo's Toyosu Market, with ingredients flown to Dubai daily, on Emirates. A year before Ueda arrived, Chef Takashi Namekata had landed in the same city. He was 27, from Yokohama, and wanted to see what existed outside Japan. “Dubai gave me the opportunity,” he says. “I was still young. I decided to challenge myself.” Neither knew the Dubai-it journey their careers would take in Dubai. Ueda had started cooking at home in Hokkaido, Japan, when he was around 10 years old, helping his mother. “Fried rice, fried noodles, cooking rice, miso soup,” he says. His mother was a good cook. So was his father. Asked what made a child that age interested enough to keep returning to the kitchen, Ueda searches his memory. “I don't remember but my mother makes food very good,” he says. “That's why I, too, wanted to.” At 16, he began working part-time at a hamburger restaurant. Culinary school in Hokkaido followed. Then came a French restaurant, two years of French cooking, a year of Italian and a year of Chinese. He was trying things out. “French cuisine gave a good feeling, but Italian was also interesting, Chinese, too, and then Japanese. That's why I took different paths.” Eventually, he returned to where it began - Japanese cooking. “My mother makes Japanese,” he says. “That's why I go back to the Japanese way.” Chef Takashi Namekata's entry into a professional kitchen was a lot less structured. “Dubai gave me the opportunity. I was still young. I decided to challenge myself,” says Chef Takashi Namekata. He was also 16, but he wasn't thinking about becoming a chef. He wanted some pocket money. His first job at a small local restaurant in Yokohama was making deliveries. “I started as a delivery boy,” he says. “Then slowly, slowly, they started asking me to help in the kitchen.” He learnt to cook. Wanting to learn more, he moved to a Kaiseki restaurant and stayed for six years. There was no culinary school. Kaiseki is a traditional Japanese multi-course dining tradition built around seasonal ingredients and carefully composed dishes. “I learnt all the basic cooking — how to make Dashi or stock, how to make the sauce, how to cut fish, how to keep fish fresh. Very basic things but was the most important foundation.” He was following the Japanese totem - practise makes perfect. It was from there that a former boss connected him with the Japanese owner of Kisaku restaurant in Deira, Dubai, who was looking for a chef. Namekata took the chance. Then came the challenge. “I needed to study how to make the same flavours in Dubai compared with Japan.” Namekata had learnt to work with fish through Kaiseki cooking. In Dubai, he began to concentrate much more closely on sushi and seafood, taking techniques learnt in Japan and applying them to what was available. “It helped me evolve as a chef,” he says. It was one reason he wanted to stay. A year later Ueda arrived at Kisaku. The earthquake and tsunami in Japan had coincided with a difficult period for work and business. An executive chef from Hokkaido at Kisaku spoke to him about Dubai, and Ueda took a chance. Chef Hisao Ueda had started cooking at home in Hokkaido, Japan, when he was around 10 years old, helping his mother. What struck him after arriving was not only what was available in the kitchen. It was how he was regarded outside it. “In Dubai, a chef is respected.” For a man who had been cooking professionally since his teens, the reaction from diners mattered. “Dubai guest said, ‘This one is very delicious.’ My mind is evolving. Customer said good things to me. Of course, I grow more, make more new good food.” The international customers were an education for a man who had mostly spent his life in Hokkaido. “Many nationalities in Dubai,” Ueda says. “Indian people like this taste. Europeans a certain taste. All are different.” “Opened the mind,” he tells Emirates 24/7. Namekata's path in Dubai was a little more circuitous. He spent two years at Kisaku before moving with Chef Ueda to Tomo at Raffles in 2012. Then, he went back to Japan. He stayed for two years. “I was still young,” he says. “I wanted to go back to Japan to get more knowledge, techniques, discover more new things to learn — to continue the chef life in Dubai.” In 2015, he returned to Dubai and Tomo, eventually as executive chef. By 2021, he felt he had reached another turning point. Tomo was a large, family friendly Japanese restaurant. Namekata wanted to push his work further. “I had enough experience,” he says. “I started thinking to elevate my work.” By then, he and Ueda had known each