About

3passion in one; METAL! TRAVEL! COOKING!

Cooking with PASSION, SPIRIT & INSPIRATION

Kitchen rule -FOCUS, DETAILS & PUSH-

Self-proclaimed “Culinary metal vagabond” Tadateru Charles John Tokudaiji ”CJ” was born in Santa Monica, CA and grew up in Tokyo during his teenage. On April 2000 CJ started his global culinary journey, He has worked in Japan, Australia, France, U.S.A., Hong kong and Singapore in the past years.

CJ has two main culinary influences. First, chef Laurent Gras who first met at the 5th floor in San Francisco, later worked in NY and Chicago as well. He taught CJ what a true professional chef is and real passion for cooking. CJ always say “If I didn’t meet chef Laurent, I don’t think I’m still cooking. What is chef? Laurent gras is the answer, period” The other is chef Grant Achatz of Alinea, who showed him the new horizon of what cooking & dining experience could be and new dimension of culinary inspiration. CJ say “After work n’ stage 200 plus kitchen, Alinea IS probably the most -INTENSE- kitchen I ever seen, true no mercy, pure f**kin’ metal, kill or be killed! There’s no -can’t-, just -make it happen- no mattar what.”

Through his culinary world tour *CJWDT, CJ have traveled over 130 countries and have worked/staged 239 restaurants across 46 countries on his way to visiting all 195 countries, 300 stages across 100 countries(and rocket off to Mars). His GastRomancing saga continues, destination anywhere….