i. Biography
Bruce Ricketts is the chef of Iai in Taguig, Metro Manila, carrying a path that runs from being raised in California to Manila and, by 2023, beyond his run as owner and head chef of Mecha Uma. The movement has been direct but never narrow: California cuisine, Japanese ingredients, Manila restaurants, and a specialty in Japanese fusion food all meet in the way he cooks now.
Early Years
Raised in California, Ricketts brought that background into menus that later took shape at Sensei Sushi Bar. There, his food reflected California cuisine alongside an obsession with Japanese ingredients and technique, a pairing that gave the work its tension and drive. The cooking at Sensei was described as a maverick, high-low hybrid: punchy Japanese staples on one side, bold and provocative tasting menus on the other. That combination matters in understanding his later Manila work, because it shows a cook less interested in a fixed category than in the pressure created when technique, appetite, and contrast are forced into the same frame. Japanese fusion food became the specialty attached to his name. In Ricketts’s case, that phrase is not a soft blur between cuisines; it points to a specific grammar of Japanese methods, California inflection, and ingredients chosen for force, season, and clarity.
Making a Name
In Manila, Ricketts became owner and head chef of Mecha Uma, a role he held until 2023. The restaurant placed him at the center of a run defined by tasting-menu energy and a sharp, personal reading of Japanese-influenced cooking. His Manila work also extends through La Chinesca and Ooma, where he is identified as the mastermind. Those names add range to the biography: not a single-room story, but a chef whose ideas moved through multiple concepts while staying tied to the same core interests in flavor, technique, and momentum. The through-line is discipline as much as instinct. One of his clearest technical statements is about fish: "We store our fish for twelve days at one degree Celsius to allow its flavor to fully develop." The sentence is plain, almost severe, and it reveals the patience behind food that can read as immediate and punchy at the table.
The Present
At Iai in Taguig, Metro Manila, Ricketts’s dinner-only sushi omakase and kappo service focuses on Filipino, global, and seasonal Japanese ingredients with Japanese techniques and executions. It is the most concentrated expression of the path that brought him here: California in the background, Manila in the foreground, and Japanese technique as the working language. The restaurant’s format also tightens the lens. Dinner-only service, omakase, and kappo give the cooking a staged intimacy, while the ingredient range keeps it from feeling sealed off from place or season. For Ricketts, arrival does not mean settling into one influence. It means using a narrow service style to hold many inputs at once, from Filipino products to seasonal Japanese ingredients, and making them speak through technique rather than explanation.
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Bruce
What is Bruce Ricketts doing now?
Bruce Ricketts is chef at Iai in Taguig, Metro Manila, where the dinner-only sushi omakase and kappo service uses Filipino, global, and seasonal Japanese ingredients with Japanese techniques and executions.
Where else has Bruce Ricketts worked?
He was owner and head chef of Mecha Uma in Manila until 2023, and he is also associated with La Chinesca, Ooma, and Sensei Sushi Bar.
