India, November 11, 2026: Masaharu Morimoto: 22 years of getting Japanese food right in Mumbai. The Hindu reported the development in a detailed account.

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But I didn’t know how to make Japanese food vegetarian,” he says. He then turned to the temple cooking of Japan’s Buddhist monks and rebuilt the menu. Recently, Morimoto was back in the city to mark the restaurant’s 22nd anniversary and he admits he almost did not come at all.

“When the Taj asked me 22 years ago, I was hesitant. It was far away from the United States, and I was worried about how I would control the food quality,” he says. What changed his mind was the hotel itself: its reputation, its kitchen and the people running it.

You match, you shake hands, it’s tight, and that’s it.” Morimoto visits Mumbai once every two years, but remains closely involved in what comes out of the Wasabi kitchen | Photo Credit: Special arrangement Long before he became one of the world’s best-known Japanese chefs , Morimoto wanted to play professional baseball. A devoted fan of his hometown team, the Hiroshima Toyo Carp, he was a talented catcher at school and came close to turning professional before a broken shoulder ended his career. Cooking began with an apprenticeship at a sushi restaurant, where the owner did not let him touch fish for the first year.

Instead, he cleaned, served, chopped scallions and washed rice. He later spent five years at Nobu in New York before opening his first Morimoto restaurant in Philadelphia in 2001. Today, he runs 21 restaurants around the world and has helped create his own sake and beer.

Running a kitchen in Mumbai from thousands of miles away, he says, comes down to ingredients and communication. Sushi and sashimi fish are flown in from Japan every week, as Indian waters, though rich in seafood, do not yield fish suited to sushi. He personally approves every supplier the restaurant imports from, sets the menu, trains the staff and stays in regular contact with the Japanese chef who runs the kitchen.

In the US, the fish is good, but not the vegetables or fruit. In Europe, the fish is not so good, but the fruit and vegetables are fine.

The report is filed here under Lifestyle. The Hindu is the account this copy follows, and the article above keeps the detail that report gave. Nothing beyond those reported details is added.