i. Biography
From the Tokyo address of Hayato to the market-driven tables of Toshi in València, Toshiyuki Yoshida’s arc moves through Chinese cuisine with a cook’s sense of motion: a brine carried across borders, a menu rewritten by the morning’s produce, and awards landing in Japan and Spain across 2024, 2025, and 2026. At the València restaurant, where he is chef, that momentum becomes a daily-changing Chinese-Mediterranean menu shaped by Spanish market produce and East Asian technique.
Beginnings
Yoshida’s named career path runs through Hayato in Tokyo, Japan, where he serves as chef. The specialty attached to his work is Chinese cuisine, a frame that also helps explain the technique and flavor logic later seen in València. A deeper clue to his cooking appears in his own description of lǔshuǐ, the replenished brine that travels with memory as much as flavor. “When I heard the word 'journey,' the first thing that came to mind was the lǔshuǐ brine that I have kept replenishing and making continuously.” The brine is not presented as a static recipe; Yoshida speaks of it as something that has accumulated time and distance. “This lǔshuǐ flew around the world with me, including France and Hong Kong, grew over the same years, returned to Japan, and has been kept replenished for 15 years.”
The Rise
Recognition for the Tokyo restaurant arrived on two clear markers. In 2025, Hayato was ranked 145 by OAD Japanese Restaurants. In 2026, it received a Tabelog Award Silver. Those honors sit beside the Spanish chapter rather than replacing it. For Toshi in València, Spain, Michelin Plate recognition came in 2024 and again in 2025, marking the restaurant within Michelin’s guide framework while Yoshida’s cooking continued to move between Chinese foundations and Mediterranean ingredients. His own language for the brine gives that movement a compact form: “It is truly a secret sauce that travels.” The line fits a career split across named restaurants in Tokyo and València without needing to turn either city into a backdrop; the work is in the carrying, replenishing, adapting.
Today
At Toshi, Yoshida works from the market outward. The menu changes daily according to what the market offers each morning, and the result is described specifically as Chinese-Mediterranean: not a fixed list of signatures, but a changing conversation between availability and technique. Spanish market produce is central to the València cooking, with vegetables given a prominent role. The ingredients are filtered through East Asian technique and flavor logic, keeping the restaurant’s identity precise: local produce, Chinese cuisine as specialty, and a cook’s disciplined attention to how flavor is built. The lǔshuǐ remains the most vivid expression of that method in Yoshida’s own words. “It has Western aromas, Eastern technique, and a nostalgic Japaneseness.”
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Toshiyuki
Where did Toshiyuki Yoshida begin their career?
What roles has Toshiyuki Yoshida held?
He has held chef roles at Hayato in Tokyo, Japan, and at Toshi in València, Spain.
What is Toshiyuki Yoshida doing now?
He is chef at Toshi in València, where he works a daily-changing Chinese-Mediterranean menu driven by each morning’s market.
