Japanese speakers might find chef Ryogo Fujii’s choice of restaurant name slightly odd. The two characters of his restaurant’s name refer to things with limitations, endings and expirations. Human life. The physical world. Familial ties and relationships.  

But rather than something to be despaired about, Chef Fujii believes that this temporality should be celebrated. Every meal is a miracle, he explains. Every service is a truly miraculous confluence of factors; out of all the hundreds, even thousands of restaurants in Japan, a guest should end up before him.  

“I named this restaurant ‘Ugai’ in the hopes of better appreciating the relationships that I have with the people in my life, and the limited time that I have here,” he says.   

As such, each of his dishes is created with the purpose of highlighting the effort and passion of the producers who supply him with produce, meat and seafood. In his kitchen, every action is driven by gratitude; gratitude to his suppliers, his staff, and the guests who grace his counter. He creates food that thrills the palate by maximizing the ingredients’ natural flavors, adroitly balancing umami, sweetness and bitterness across his various courses. Characteristic of Ugai’s approach is putting vegetables and fruits as the center of a course, rather than leaving them merely as accessories to meat and fish.  

Appropriately for a chef who is acutely aware of time’s fleeting nature, Chef Fujii has already accomplished at a young age twice as much as what others could only hope to achieve in an entire lifetime. At just 16, he became a chef in an Osaka restaurant; the next year, on the advice of the head chef, he moved to Tokyo for further training, simultaneously working at a fish supplier to expand his knowledge of seafood.   

At just 22, he became the owner of a members-only restaurant in Kagurazaka, before starting Ginza Ugai in December 2022. Chef Fujii may be only mortal, but he is most certainly making the most of his time.