Yo Matsuzaki

After receiving his degree from Peter Kump Culinary School in New York City Chef Yo Matsuzaki began his career at Drew Nieporant’s French Restaurant, Montrachet. He continued his relationship with Nieportant when he went to work for him at Nobu Restaurant, also in New York City. At Nobu, Chef Matsuzaki worked as both a waiter/Captain and an assistant sushi chef. While he was refining his front of the house experience he was simultaneously honing his delicate knife skills along with the artistry of food presentation from the famous Japanese Iron Chef, Masaharu Morimoto. He remained at Nobu for four years before moving to California to study California cuisine. His first job in California was at Rubicon in San Francisco, also one of Nieporant’s restaurants.  

After learning basic French cooking at Rubicon Chef Matsuzaki accepted a job at Farallon, part of Pat Kuleto’s restaurant group. While at Farallon he began to master the originality of California Cuisine. During his time at Farallon, he had an opportunity to create tasting courses and began to pull from his background at Nobu, adding a hint of Asian influence. 

Matsuzaki left Farallon to take on the challenge of working in a high volume large venue. He accepted a Sous chef position at the Hilton Hotel San Francisco. The Hilton is the largest hotel on the west coast of America and Chef Matsuzaki was hired to take charge of the Hilton’s hi-end restaurant, Cityscape. At Cityscape Matsuzaki created Asian inspired menus and worked with the Executive Chef of the Hilton to establish cutting edge banquet menus. While at the Hilton he also had the unique opportunity to run food demonstrations in front of large groups of people in the hotel lobby. 

After two years at the Hilton Chef Matsuzaki decided to go back to his roots so he took an Executive Chef position at Ozumo restaurant in San Francisco. Ozumo features contemporary Japanese food and tapas style dishes called Izakaya. At Ozumo he worked to blend his background in California cuisine with traditional Japanese food creating a modern twist on Japanese fare. 

One year later Matsuzaki was recruited to open Sutra Restaurant as Executive Chef. The restaurant featured Pacific Rim cuisine served small plate style. Matsuzaki was brought in as chef three weeks before the restaurant opened to alter the menu in more traditional Japanese fashion. While at Sutra Matsuzaki expanded his knowledge of South East Asian flavors and began to delicately create a unique Asian fusion menu.

Currently Chef Matsuzaki is working at Ozumo restaurant’s new location in Oakland California as an Executive Chef. He continues to challenge himself to create delicious and memorable dishes for customers with his ideal of cuisine.

Chef Matsuzaki was born into a food oriented family on the island of Shikoku, Japan. His family owned orange farms and taught him from a young age to respect nature and the ingredients that come from the earth.  As a young boy he was trained by his grandmother and mother to cook fine Asian cuisine. It is this training that Matsuzaki takes with him on every step of his culinary journey.