Hiroko Shimbo

Hiroko Shimbo is an authority on Japanese cuisine, with worldwide recognition. A chef-consultant for restaurants and food companies, Hiroko is also a trained sushi chef, author, media performer, and chef-instructor. Hiroko operates Hiroko's Kitchen, LLC, a consulting company, in New York City.

 

Hiroko's award-winning, best-selling book, The Japanese Kitchen, an International Association of Culinary Professionals award finalist and Best of The Best Award by Food & Wine, has become the bible for both professional chefs and home cooks. The Japanese Kitchen has been translated into Spanish and published in Spain, as La Cocina Japonesa. Hiroko's second book, The Sushi Experience, a James Beard Foundation Award nominee and Gourmand International Award finalist, U.S. section, is the most comprehensive treatment of sushi published in English. The book continues to attract professionals and home cooks.

 

Hiroko has a growing list of clients in the restaurant and food-service industry. She has recently been the principal adviser to the developers of an authentic Japanese curry restaurant, KARE-KEN, in San Francisco, and now serves as the restaurant’s executive chef. Hiroko's current restaurant project is the establishment of a quick-service fresh-sushi restaurant in New York City. Hiroko has provided recipe, menu-development, and other services, including demonstrations and lectures to companies, such as New York Mutual Trading Company, Zojirushi America Corporation, JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization), AVI Foodsystems, Inc., Bon Appétit Management Company, Unilever, UMass Dining, P.F. Chang's China Bistro, and Ruth's Chris Steak House. Hiroko offers Japanese cooking courses–The Essentials of Japanese Cuisine–at the French Culinary Institute/International Culinary Center in New York City. She is also a frequent guest chef at Worlds of Flavors Conference at the Culinary Institute of America, Greystone, in Napa Valley, California. Hiroko appears in the media and online through her own Web site, hirokoskitchen.com, through her blog, and through Twitter @hirokoshimbo, as well as on such services as About.com.   

 

Hiroko is a member of the Women Chefs and Restaurateurs, Culinary Historians of New York, The Author's Guild, and is a sushi adviser for the Blue Ocean Institute.