Chef

Akihiro Hamaguchi

Discipline: Chef
Based in: Osaka, Japan
Venue: Macauda · Restaurant

i. Biography

Coming Up

Osaka is the working ground for Akihiro Hamaguchi, but the kitchen points south, toward the coasts and regional tables of Puglia and Sicily. At Macauda, that means homemade pasta in quantity, seafood sourced from across Japan, and a menu built to keep Italian form intact while letting Japanese supply shape the plate. The register is disciplined, but the cooking stays open in flavor. Hamaguchi came to hospitality from music, and the throughline is visible in the kitchen: timing, structure, and a direct sense of arrangement. In Macauda, that translates into a place-aware style that treats ingredient character as the starting point rather than an afterthought.

Where They Are Now

As owner/chef of Macauda in Osaka, Akihiro Hamaguchi ties the restaurant’s identity to a single point of view. The role places him both in the cooking and in the decisions that define the room, so the restaurant reads clearly through his choices. Southern Italy remains the center of the menu, especially Puglia and Sicily. The framework is familiar—abundant homemade pasta, fresh seafood from across Japan—but the value is in how those parts are held together. The food aims for generosity without excess, with Italian structure supported by local sourcing instead of displaced by it. Puglian and Sicilian fare is the clearest way to name his specialty. Those regional cuisines depend on restraint, warmth, and careful handling, and Hamaguchi’s work follows that logic in Osaka. The result is a kitchen organized around handmade pasta and seafood, where Southern Italian technique is expressed through a local rhythm. The point of distinction is coherence. At Macauda, Akihiro Hamaguchi keeps origin, setting, technique, and ingredient in line with one another. That alignment matters more than display: the food is built to feel placed, not pasted in.