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Perry's James Beard-Winning Japanese Chef Credits Mom For Cooking Skills
Plenty of tears were shed late last month as Perry's executive chef Masako Morishita and her mother, Ryoko Morishita, served Japanese comfort foods reminiscent of Masako's childhood and her family's nearly 100-year-old restaurant in Kobe, Japan, that she has been introducing to D.C. palates for almost six years.
When Masako was asked by Resy to put together her own 'Dream Team Dinner' for the national American Express and Resy dinner series, she could only think of one chef she'd admired for decades. Her mother has been leading the kitchen in their family-owned tachinomi (a small standing bar and restaurant) for almost 50 years and has always been her go-to person for questions about a new dish or advice for switching up a menu. But Ryoko, like Masako, is not a classically trained chef. She was a sake brewery sales representative when she met Masako's father and it was daunting task to cook in a restaurant kitchen when they took on the family business. That led to her taking more risks, incorporating non-Japanese ingredients into her cooking and inspiring her adventurous daughter.
Masako easily plays with traditional Japanese dishes, like okonomiyaki with black garlic aioli and prosciutto at her first gig at Maxwell Park and Perry's famous shrimp katsu burger that ties together togarashi tartar, lemon cabbage slaw, and cheddar on a deep-fried shrimp patty.
For their first-ever crossover dinner on May 29, weeks after Mother's Day, Ryoko flew in from Japan to prepare favorite family dishes with her daughter in Adams Morgan. Gyu suji nikomi, beef tendon stew, starts the meal with a small bowl of extremely tender wagyu tendon with deep sake and soy flavors cooked down for three days. This stew is always Masako's first dinner request when she visits her family in Japan. House-made dashi broth, one of Masako's favorite comforting ingredients to make from scratch, was featured in the tofu skin-wrapped first course and a childhood of enjoying shabu shabu inspired the second course of thinly sliced wagyu ribeye in a sweet soy sauce broth.
The multi-course dinner culminated in an unconventional dessert. Midori, a Japanese sweet melon liqueur, and soda were poured over vanilla gelato, making a float reminiscent of the melon soda Masako used to have as a special treat growing up.
'I used to have really severe asthma growing up. So since I was two years old, so my mom had to take me to the doctor every single week so I could get a shot,' Masako explains. 'But of course, I hate it. I was kid. I didn't like it at all, but there was a cafe nearby the doctor's office, so she always took me there and then let me pick whatever I wanted to eat or drink to make me feel better… that's that drink I used to order all the time.'
That thoughtful treat at the end of their collaborative meal sums up decades of ups-and-downs in Masako and Ryoko's relationship. As an admittedly headstrong teen, Masako constantly clashed with her parents and even forged their signatures for a foreign exchange program that sent her to a small town in Wisconsin at 16 years old. 'I was a little crazy,' Masako concedes. But even when they disagreed, Ryoko was always cooking for Masako, serving up dishes with warmth and comforting flavors that 'melted the ice' of their disagreements.
She constantly forged her own path, becoming a cheerleader for the Washington Commanders and then a chef as her parents urged her to stick to a reliable desk job. But her passion and drive won over the James Beard Foundation in 2024, when she won the Emerging Chef award at the Oscars of the food world.
'Even though I was working almost three years full-time in this career, they kept telling me, 'Oh, don't you want to go back to your office job?'' Masako remembers. 'But the award really made them think, 'Okay, I think she's doing okay.''
Today, food still connects the mother and daughter, with Ryoko even coming to her for advice on dishes and cheering Masako on from afar. This is the first time they've collaborated in a restaurant kitchen together, but Masako hopes it won't be the last.
'If we have a chance to do it again, of course I would,' she says. 'Because I'm really confident we can create something different and delicious'
You can read Masako Morishita's own personal essay about how her mother, Ryoko Morishita, influenced her cooking here. See More:
