Yoshinori Ishii has joined Umu, the Michelin-starred restaurant in London's Mayfair, as its new executive chef. Ishii takes over from Ichiro Kubota, who was head chef since the opening of the restaurant in 2004. Ishii has 20 years' cooking experience.
He trained for nine years at the Michelin three-starred Kyoto Kitcho in Japan, where he headed up the Sashimi section, before becoming head chef at the Japanese Embassy for the United Nations in Geneva and New York.
Most recently, he worked as Omakase chef at Morimoto restaurant in New York, where he received the 'Rising Star Chef' award and was a finalist for the Vilcek prize for culinary arts.