Chef Tetsuya Wakuda Biography

Tetsuya Wakuda grew up in the Japanese town of Hamamatsu in the Shizuoka Prefecture. With a limited knowledge of English Tetsuya arrived in Australia at the age of twenty-two never imagining he would one day be embraced as one of the nation’s favourite chefs.
Landing in Sydney in 1982 with nothing more than a small suitcase and a love of food Tetsuya found his very first job as a kitchen hand at Fishwives in Surry Hills. A year later he was introduced to Sydney chef Tony Bilson who was looking for a Japanese cook to make sushi at Kinsela’s. It was at Kinsela’s that Tetsuya learned classical French techniques thus forming the beginnings of his own style of cooking marrying the French technique with the Japanese philosophy of using natural seasonal flavours.
Tetsuya left Kinsela’s in 1983 and in partnership with the head waiter opened Ultimo’s. In 1989 he went on to open his own restaurant Tetsuya’s on a small site in the Sydney suburb of Rozelle. Relocating to the CBD in November 2000 Tetsuya refurbished the heritage-listed site at 529 Kent St to create his dream restaurant complete with dining rooms overlooking an exquisite Japanese garden.
Tetsuya is proud to promote the traditions and cuisine of Japan and was honoured to be selected as the Japanese sake industry’s first overseas Sake Samurai (or ambassador) in 2006.

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