A conversation with Junya about fish & life

I have never connected deeply with Los Angeles. The weather is pleasant year round, but my feelings are probably connected to my lack of driving ability and being prone to motion sickness. After more than a decade of living in dense city centers with public transportation, LA feels cumbersome to me. Getting in the car to grab something you forgot at the supermarket, or seeing someone walking down the street, almost feels out of place. To reiterate, this opinion is probably shaped by my own biases.

What I have recently begun to appreciate is LA’s diversity. After living for more than a decade in Europe, encountering different cuisines, perspectives, and even languages gives me a nostalgic feeling for where I grew up in Vancouver.

On this trip I had asked some friends (you know who you are) to put me in touch with a chef I had always followed and deeply admired. Junya was the founding chef of Koya, a restaurant in London originally intended to be a udon shop that eventually took on a culinary life of its own through a daily changing chalkboard menu inspired by English produce. During our conversation I learned that Junya found his way into cooking after studying art in Paris and taking a service job while studying at Rose Bakery. During his five years as chef, Koya became legendary. I only had the chance to eat there once before Junya moved back to Japan. I do not intend this to be a biography of Junya, but rather to give a bit of context to a lesser-known character in the culinary drama that is the food world. I would describe him as a chef’s chef.