Natsuko Shoji on the Past 10 Years

In this article, we will deliver the memoirs and letters written by Chef Shoji Natsuko in their unfiltered state. Please read about Chef Shoji's past and his feelings now that he has reached his 10th anniversary. The Japanese version is available for download here or at the bottom of the article.

I started working at a restaurant right after graduating from high school. Exceedingly busy from 7 a.m. to midnight, I was constantly prepping ingredients, peeling chestnuts and fava beans even on my days off and on my commute to work. I couldn't afford financially or physically to live on my own, so I would commute from my parents' house, just narrowly getting by with my mother supporting me in various ways.
Everyone at work got mad at me for clocking into work in my pajamas every day, so I bought several Ralph Lauren polo shirts on sale and wore them as my pajamas, going to work in them in the morning. I was afraid of oversleeping, so I started sleeping on the living room floor with the lights on. (I never got out of this habit, so I still don’t own a bed and sleep on the floor.)
I was so busy every day that I barely had time to think, just hanging in for dear life. I didn’t have time to watch TV or relax. But it gave me joy to see the happy customers at the restaurant, and to be recognized by the chef for my achievements. Many people around me quit one by one, and soon I was
the only one left standing.
One day, however, my mother suddenly told me that my father might die in two weeks. He had always been an alcoholic, and since I had kept my distance from him, I didn't even notice that he had been hospitalized even though we lived together. He had terminal liver cirrhosis. When I went to see my father at the hospital, his skin was discolored and his stomach was filled with ascites fluid. I was particularly shocked when he asked me, “Who are you?” The restaurant was as busy as ever, so I couldn’t visit him much. The hospital called me in the middle of the night as he was dying, but I had to make a birthday cake for a lunch customer the next day, and there was no one else to replace me. I
didn't go to see him off in the end. My mother called and told me to come right away because he had been moved to the morgue, but I was only able to get there after lunch time was over. When I saw my father at the morgue, I wondered if I had done possibly the worst thing a person could do. I didn't want to do the same thing to my mother, so I decided to quit being a cook.

My younger sister has a severe intellectual disability and has trouble communicating. The house was a constant mess growing up, and we would often call the ambulance when she had a seizure because she would convulse, foam at the mouth, and her eyes would roll to the back of her head. I thought my sister was a monster. It was impossible to whitewash this life of ours. My father, mother, and I were exhausted, and we were not human, either, harboring dark resentful feelings toward my sister. She is now living in an institution, but this memory remains at the bottom of my heart, causing my heart to race and making it hard to breathe.

After quitting the restaurant, I got depressed and withdrew from society for a few months, but I realized that I would eventually have to start working again to support my sister, considering the state she was in. I returned to society by starting a part-time job as a waitress at a Chinese restaurant in a hotel. I picked up the job quickly, but it wasn’t fulfilling, and my brain was underused. Then, one of the writers who had helped me when I was working at the first restaurant got married, and contacted me to make her some of my desserts for her wedding party. I rented the kitchen of my alma mater, and got to work.
It brought me great joy that my creations were appreciated by the people I cared about, and this opportunity led me to receive more requests to make different kinds of desserts, which I began to do while working part-time at the hotel restaurant. Finally, I started to make full-course meals as a private chef.
I started wanting to return to the restaurant industry, but having quit the previous restaurant with a rather strong declaration, it was difficult for me to find another training opportunity in the small industry. I had my family to take care of, so I decided to start my own business. I was around 22 years old.

I needed funds to open my own restaurant, which meant I had to get a loan from the finance corporation, which was a struggle. I was able to get a loan plan specifically for young women, but I had to put up a lot of collateral. I despaired over the position of young women in Japan. In one of the worst moments, I was asked to show all of my clients' business cards. Ultimately, I used my father’s house and borrowed 3 million yen from my grandfather without telling my mother to secure a 10-million-yen loan. But I knew that a loan is no different from a debt, and I thought that if I failed, I would have to die, so I applied for a life insurance policy. I didn't know what the chances of success were, but at that time, it was either success or death.
I wanted to open a restaurant, but it was difficult to find anyone that would be willing to work for a young woman with no track record, so I started by developing reservation-only cakes by myself. I had to create something iconic, so I invented the mango tart. I developed the cake, the box, and the bag at my store while also working as a private chef. But I was overworked and had to undergo surgery due to a hernia that made it difficult for me to walk. Because I had already received reservations for the cakes up until the day of the operation, I tried to sneak out of the hospital and deliver them before going into surgery. The hospital found out.
I didn't set a specific date for my store’s opening, but I decided to open it in 2014. The general image of the opening of a new restaurant is a very festive one, with orchids as gifts from various people, but I wasn’t expecting to be celebrated, and I was exhausted worrying about making enough money to live. Without a definite opening date, my store was in operation when I realized, sort of.

Ever since borrowing the money, I was thinking about how to make my name known quickly and as widely as possible. I decided to name my restaurant “été” with two syllables so that people would remember it easily, along with my name. I started selling the cakes, and interview requests started coming in. I exclusively made mango tarts for a year. I also had strawberry and grape flavors in the lineup, but only put out mango tarts to make them my signature. Then, while still making the tarts, I started opening up the restaurant for one couple per day, by inviting customers who had purchased the tarts. My restaurant opened on no particular date, just as with my store. While selling mango tarts, I quietly started the restaurant around 2015. There was no anniversary date yet again.

　
The mango tart was introduced on a TV show called “Sma-station” that aired before the idol group SMAP broke up, and the store’s reservation server crashed as a result. I took this as an opportunity to close the site for a while to slow down the sales of the cakes intentionally, and to focus on the restaurant business. Since I had no money, I couldn’t be very particular about tableware and utensils yet.
I felt the limits of running the cake and restaurant businesses all by myself, but I struggled to find people to hire. So I came up with the idea of asking my alma mater to hire me as an instructor, which they readily agreed to. When I was a high school student there, most of the instructors were older than my parents, and there were no other instructors in their 20s, so I had the impression that the students were very interested in what I had to say. I also strongly felt that the students should be given advice on how to start their own business, and not only be taught cooking techniques. Finally, I was also able to hire my first staff member and this allowed me to greatly enhance my business.
A department store offered to host a pop-up of my cakes. I got to meet many new customers. I went to see Takashi Murakami's The 500 Arhats exhibition and was greatly moved by it. At the same time, I felt like I had been struck by lightning, just like when I first saw his collaboration with Louis Vuitton. Suddenly, one unfathomably huge goal came to mind: to work with him someday to create a new form of art together.

　
The mango tart became famous because of overseas customers, and I was invited to participate in events abroad. I went to events in Bangkok and Taiwan. These experiences made me appreciative of the Japanese ingredients and independent manufacturers I casually interacted with on an everyday basis.
I received the “Tabelog” award in Japan. As a fashion lover, I went to receive the award in a flamboyant outfit and started to be distanced from chefs in Japan, except for a few.

　
The restaurant became full-fledged and international guests began to arrive. David Beckham visited the restaurant and uploaded his photos on Instagram, which awakened me to the importance of social media. The arrival of international customers also made me realize the importance of explaining my cuisine in English.
This marked the third year of the pop-up held at the department store. I worked madly to make the cakes, as customers were coming from far away just to buy my cakes. As a result, I achieved the highest sales in the history of the sweets section, but the department store's representative couldn't keep up with été's 24-hour operation and refused to accompany us early in the morning to deliver the cakes to the venue. I was so furious with the department store for going against the enthusiasm of our customers and my team, that we stopped doing pop-ups at the department store after that year.
A mutual customer led me to meet floral artist Azuma Makoto and photographer Shunsuke Shiinoki, who work together to photograph the former’s works. I was moved to the core by their creative expression’s technique and message. The existing definition of a floral artist was blown out of my mind by Azuma’s worldview.
In September, I was invited to work with Cartier on a pop-up event based on the concept of a Cartier convenience store, where I sold small mango tarts made with “Taiyo no Tamago,” a local mango from Miyazaki Prefecture. They were sold for 10,000 yen and though I took zero profit, I was told that the price was too high. This led me to begin questioning the understanding of local fruits in Japan; people seemed to have no real understanding of their value.
In December, I participated in my first international chef collaboration: a collaboration dinner in Hong Kong with Vicky Lau, who had been named the Best Female Chef in 2015. I was shocked by the fact that she had a space in her restaurant's kitchen to take care of her children, and to see how she was able to balance her family life and business at the same time with the support of her husband and staff. From her team, I learned the importance of not only cooking but also supporting and promoting each other's backgrounds and efforts. Additionally, I realized that in Japan, the best food producers often lacked the ability to promote themselves or had no one to pass their business on to.
As soon as my cakes became famous, people started saying that I was backed by a man who funded me or that I had a rich husband. I began to constantly think about the reason behind why there is such a lack of female chefs. From this time on, my camera roll started recording memories of
my bald spot the size of a 500-yen coin.

　
With increased recognition and steady sales, I succeeded in gaining the trust of the bank and was able to take out about 30 million yen more in loans. I moved my restaurant from a small rented apartment room that cost 130,000 yen a month to a new location, and was able to add another staff member to the team.
From January to May, I focused on collaborating with female chefs from abroad, including Chef Vicky Lau. While many female chefs leave the kitchen after marriage or childbirth in Japan, many women overseas take on the roles of both mothers and chefs.
From this year onward, I began to focus on working with fashion brands. I was working very exuberantly because I love fashion myself. One of the most memorable moments was when I worked as a gala dinner chef for HERMES, which was one of my goals at the time. This was the first time I finally got to work with Azuma Makoto’s team, as well as Grove Dish and Hiromu Shirasaka, who works at an event company. Their perfect preparation, flawless operation, never-leaving-until-everything-wasperfect work ethic made me realize what it took to be trusted by a Maison for a long time. I decided in my heart that I would definitely work with these members again. It was a year in which I delved deeply into working with the brands that I had always admired, and with fashion houses that I loved. I also created dishes in homage to these collaborations and learned a lot from the high level of work required by world-class brands and the high standards of their clients.
At the same time, however, it also made me realize that the global brands rarely supported chefs and manufacturers enough. Brands hold events with the aim to promote their products to their customers, and once a chef is hired for an event, they wouldn’t use the same chef again for a while, as if we are disposable. Brand's social media platforms never praised their hired chefs, either. It was frustrating and made me a little angry.

One day, I received an event offer from an assistant to Transit’s CEO, Sadahiro Nakamura, who happened to be good friends with Takashi Murakami. The event consisted of a demonstration, cake tasting, and Q&A session for VIP customers at a commercial facility. I thought this would be a tremendous chance to reach towards my goal of working with Murakami, so I gladly accepted the job. During the Q&A session with the guests at the event, I was asked what my next goal was. I declared in front of the guests, “My goal is to create works with Takashi Murakami, whom I admire, and that is why I took this job today, so those at Transit, please connect me with him!” The correspondent flustered a little, but they said, “Okay. We will take care of it!”
This was how I got to meet with Ms. Chiaki Kasahara of Kaikai Kiki. I remember I was very excited to see the Kaikai Kiki office for the first time. Chiaki had a calm composure, and told me to take a look at Murakami's book as a reference. I got an offer for a collaboration, and borrowed the data file of the famous Murakami flower with a promise not to misuse it. Based on the data, I designed a cake box and created candy sculptures, and produced two hypothetical works for if été and Takashi Murakami were to collaborate.
A few weeks later, Murakami finally showed interest in my restaurant and came for a visit. I was nervous to death, but the food was well-received. His applause never stopped. At the end of the meal, I showed him the cake I had prepared, and he was so pleased that he gave me the go ahead to sell it on the spot. I was absurdly happy. Truly. My life shifted greatly.

I met VERDY when I helped out a certain event. At that time, we only exchanged brief greetings, but many of VERDY's artworks were born out of the feeling of care for others, and that really touched my heart. In particular, his brand “Girls Don't Cry” was based on the concept of wanting his wife to always have a smile on her face, and I felt warmed by the fact that it was linked to how I always felt about cooking for those dear to me.
The Covid-19 virus was gradually spreading, but the été’s mango tart, created in collaboration with Takashi Murakami, was released just before the full pandemic hit. I felt as though I had become one with Murakami, Chiaki Kasahara, and the Kaikai Kiki team. During this event, I was deeply impressed by the meticulous process, the intense passion that seemed to consume their lives, and the pursuit of perfection that went beyond the norm, all orchestrated by Murakami and the Kaikai Kiki team from creation to launch. It would be no exaggeration to say that this experience established the foundation of the current approach at été.

　
I was awarded Asia's Best Pastry Chef in 2020, but the award ceremony and other international events were canceled. The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic hit in full swing.
I had my first encounter with MADSAKI. The collaboration cake with MADSAKI came by chance, as I had been using Gustav Klimt’s artwork as the package for été's cakes in the past. It was once again Chiaki who knew that été was making Klimt cake packages. I am so grateful. MADSAKI’s art has a shocking effect, and I felt as though I was suddenly gouged inside the body upon seeing it. This shocking impact was contrasted by the delicacy of his spray-painting technique, which he developed on his own. His works went above and beyond the usual expression of a spray paint, and I felt that his art was really superb! I was also delighted to find out that MADSAKI had also been creating works inspired by Klimt. Both being out-of-our-minds kind of people, we hit it off immediately. We worked not only on the cake package but also inside the été restaurant, on an installation that reflected the collaboration. It was truly beautiful, like stained glass. I was grateful for the enthusiasm of each artist and the installation team that made it their mission to make everything perfect.
VERDY came to eat at the restaurant with his wife, which led to the creation of a new work of art together. It started with the cakes, which then led to the creation of a new logo. I have since become good friends with VERDY’s family, and he has taught me a lot about how to work with art.
Once the pandemic began, the artists could no longer travel abroad. This led to the opportunity for me to collaborate with amazing artists and present works together. I was thrilled by the potential of merging the worlds of art fans and food enthusiasts, amplifying the appreciation for both. It became more frequent for me to think about conveying the excellence of producers and Japanese craftsmen to the world, and inspiring more people to become chefs. That year, I had the opportunity to visit Takashi Murakami's studio in Saitama, and was floored by his passion for his work.

　
I got the chance to collaborate with Daniel Calvert, the chef I respect the most. He is a genius chef, of hard work and great taste.
When I started collaborating with artists, some people began to say that I wasn’t serious as a chef. Japanese chefs would shun me at award ceremonies, purposefully ignoring me. In some cases, they went as far as to boo me. I started to bald again. But Chef Daniel recognized me and generously shared his exceptional cooking techniques with me. It made me grow as a chef, and I can only thank him for that. I began to focus more on collaborating with chefs, developing new dishes, and working with photographers to capture and present my work as still life. I had to confront myself with the importance of capturing the ephemeral nature of cuisine in photographs. In other countries, there is a culture where each dish is celebrated as art, not to mention the recognition of the chef, but I was unsure whether such was the situation in Japan.
That year, my restaurant was ranked No. 1 in the French cuisine rankings in “Tabelog.” The cake business became so busy that I ran out of cake refrigerators and space, so I created a store dedicated to selling cakes, Fleurs d'été. A third staff member joined the team.

　
The restrictions surrounding the Covid pandemic started to loosen, and though there were still almost no people going abroad, I traveled overseas and held many events-collaborating and holding demonstrations with local chefs in Abu Dhabi, London, Dubai, Mexico, and the Maldives. However, even though offers came in, there was basically no pay or profit made from these events with overseas chefs, and on top of that, there was no compensation for the ingredients I prepared and brought with me, so I lost millions of yen each time and struggled to make ends meet. I started to worry about the negative treatment surrounding the culinary world, wondering who would want to be a part of this in the next generation. I traveled many times during this year to participate in these overseas collaborations, despite the high risk of not being able to return to Japan if I tested positive for Covid. At times I was quarantined, and the stress of the mandatory PCR that I had to take before returning to Japan really felt like it shortened my life expectancy.
The events abroad were so grueling that I began to cry after each event, though I’m not the crying type. However, it was a year in which I learned that human beings do not grow unless they take on tasks beyond their capacity, and I put my life on the line to do so. It was the year I absolutely wanted to achieve results because I worried the parents of my staff as well.
I was awarded the Best Female Chef in Asia.

　
The Covid-19 pandemic ended.
I flew to Colombia, Madrid, Modena, and Cairo. I learned the importance of having trademark and facility environment approval when working with large foreign companies like Nike, Disney, and kith.
I produced my own olive oil, as a means to support the aging population or manufacturers. This was a year with a little less overseas events and more focus on Japanese manufacturers and artisans. I began to think about the succession problems in various artisanal industries, and the declining birthrate and aging population. I also began to think about nursing care, since I live with my mother.
I was in despair with inflation on the rise, as I felt that many restaurants were unable to raise their prices, and when they had no choice but to raise them, there were many people in Japan who complained on social media platforms. The lack of successors in the culinary industry was becoming a serious problem.

　
I was offered to create a gala dinner cake for the opening of Takashi Murakami's Mononoke Kyoto exhibition, and struggled to get it done. There were times where I thought I might not make it, but it worked out in the end. I was blown away by the overwhelming power of Murakami's artwork and Azuma's installation with thousands of cherry blossoms blooming in the middle of winter. I, too, fought not to be outdone, and made 300 cakes.
As labor standards become stricter, I began to wonder if the era of thinking about work 24/7 was over. While I want the next generation to prosper, I agonize over how to solve this problem. After all, good work cannot be done by one person's passion alone. Japan is weakening steadily in the food industry, and I am left wondering how to work with the next generation yet again.


I feel the specialness of été's 10th anniversary, thanks to the people around me. I aim to transcend and sublimate the value of food as art, which I have felt increasingly passionate about over the past 10 years, and I hope to transmit it to the world, so that the next generation will prosper.
The pandemic was a time for everyone to rethink what is truly important. And from that time until this exhibition, the photographs taken in cooperation with Azuma's team became a breathtaking form of art for me. It was through these works that the fruits and the cakes transcended the boundaries of food. Food becomes flesh and blood, and there is a beautiful cycle there. I will continue to run like an athlete, in order to create works of art that will reach people with the passion that my cells are boiling with.
Recently, I started to think about my health after seeing a singer friend of mine quit drinking and smoking. I also became concerned about the health of my mother and of those important to me. I really need to keep up my physical strength and brain capacity to keep serving inspiring food, and to rethink my current lifestyle where I cannot fall asleep without having a drink.
I will aim to be in good condition for another 10 years, and continue my quest to be the best chef in the world.
To all of you who are dear to me, I hope you will continue to watch over me with warmth. Thank you very much, from the bottom of my heart!