Kei Kojima

The Climb

Since late 2019, Kojima has been at Esterre, where he was announced as chef de cuisine in 2023, and the work reads as controlled rather than theatrical. The craft here is discipline: a kitchen shaped through exacting execution, restrained plating, and attention to detail that keeps the room focused on the plate. At Esterre, Kojima’s leadership is built on refinement rather than volume, with the restaurant’s measured tone reflected in the way he runs service.

Today

The brief is explicit: “The menu is all about freshness, immediacy and the genuine taste of the produce of the season.” For Kei Kojima, that places the work squarely on timing, seasonality, and ingredient clarity. The cooking is set up to preserve what the produce already has, not to cover it; the point is to let freshness read cleanly and in the moment.

Career - Chef de Cuisine — Esterre (Palace Hotel Tokyo), Japan

Signature

Chocolate Camélia is one of Kei Kojima’s signature dishes. The name suggests precision and restraint, and that fits a kitchen language built on balance rather than display. As a signature, it points to technique folded into a single composed plate.

In Their Words “For me, the most important thing became not what is made or what is used, but who is making it and with what kind of thinking.” That line puts the emphasis on authorship and intent. In Kojima’s terms, technique matters, but the thinking behind it matters first: the maker’s approach determines how the ingredients are read and how the finished dish is understood. “The menu is all about freshness, immediacy and the genuine taste of the produce of the season.” Taken with the first quote, it shows a kitchen where clarity is treated as a working method. The season is not decoration; it is the operating frame, and the goal is to keep the produce’s own character intact.