Meet The Chef Behind Umami Books

Kenji grew up in a small fishing town, watching his father slice tuna before sunrise. He trained for years in Tokyo kitchens before finally opening his own small sushi counter in Cape Town, where he still works most weekends.

Kenji writes these books because he kept meeting home cooks who loved sushi but were too nervous to try it themselves, worried they'd waste good fish or ruin a batch of rice. His goal is to remove that fear entirely, breaking each dish down into small, forgiving steps that work in a normal kitchen with ingredients you can actually find in South Africa, not a professional one stocked with tools nobody owns.