Japanese-French chef Akira Hirose dies aged 70. At Azay, his flavors live on

Akira Hirose, a chef who for decades bridged Japanese and French cuisine at some of LA's most influential restaurants, has died at age 70.

The legacy of the former owner of Azay and Maison Akira, who died in September. 26, continues to resonate; The Japanese-born, French-trained chef, who cooked with Joël Robuchon and for the Emperor and Empress of Japan, helped popularize Asian flavors through the lens of French techniques.

“Because he had one foot in Japan, one foot in France and one foot here – he stood on that line – he was not Japanese, he was not French, he was not American,” said his son, Azay owner Philip Hirose. “He was none of those things, but he was all of them together.”

Despite a recent liver transplant, failing eyesight and a general slowing of his pace, family, co-workers and fans could find him in the kitchen of Azay, his cafe in Little Tokyo, seven days a week – even when he was just preparing for church services. by cooking rice or portions of miso soup. He still wanted to be there, he still wanted to support his employees.

The gregarious chef, who never used measuring equipment, followed a clear ethos in his restaurants and in his personal life: Be happy, work hard, collaborate. His presence is still felt throughout the restaurant: framed photos in the dining room chart the course of his culinary career through France, Tokyo and Los Angeles. French cookbooks by famous chefs – many of them signed – line the shelf.

“For him it was all about simple food and good people,” Philip said. “He had a lot of knowledge with just his hands. He had these burn marks. “He was that old-school chef that you rarely find these days.”

Akira Hirose was born in Kyoto in 1954, the third son of four children, which enabled him to pursue a profession that went beyond the family business of accounting. He spent his youth helping his family, but a meal at a French restaurant in Kyoto changed the course of his life. He was fascinated by French cuisine and wanted to devote his time to it. At 18, he moved to France to study.

As he made his way through small towns and villages, he learned about fine and rustic French cuisine and prepared Japanese food just for staff meals – which his colleagues ate with gratitude in the kitchens of Azay-le-Rideau in the Loire Valley and Le Grand Monarchy Fox hunted, played the French horn, bathed in rivers in the summer and cooked traditional French cuisine in the evenings.

At the age of 24 he moved to Paris, where he worked for two years at Maxim's de Paris and directly under Joël Robuchon at the Nikko Hotel. He studied pastry making in Lenôtre. Hirose was soon asked to join the kitchen at the pioneering French restaurant L'Orangerie in Los Angeles, where chefs like Ludo Lefebvre trained before going on to shape LA's dining scene in the years to come. It was Hirose's introduction to life in LA and the woman he would marry.

Hirose had placed an ad for part-time kitchen help in a local Japanese-language newspaper, and Jo Ann Maehara responded. Their relationship blossomed during their time together in the kitchen. As is Hirose's culinary career. He later served as the opening chef at Belvedere at Peninsula Beverly Hills, where he introduced Japanese flair to the brasserie kitchen with splashes of soy and wasabi mashed potatoes – an early adopter of Asian fusion cuisine.

But Hirose longed to open his own restaurant and he moved to Japan with his wife to do so. They opened Azay-le-Rideau in Kyoto on one condition: they would return to Los Angeles when it was time to start a family.

When they did, he was cooking in the Tower Restaurant, where white linens were draped over the tables, cloth napkins were stretched from the glasses and he donned a white chef's coat. Hirose was always comfortable in this environment, and while he served a more casual menu at the café at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo, he provided some of these hallmarks when he opened his esteemed Maison Akira in Pasadena around the same time, in 1998 opened were present.

Former LA Times restaurant critic S. Irene Virbila called the food “unabashedly French-Japanese style” and familiar dishes like foie gras flan, sansho-crusted salmon and, of course, Hirose’s specialty, miso-marinated Chilean sea bass.

When the Hiroses closed Maison Akira in 2019, the culinary world had changed drastically.

“It was at a time when fusion was neither a sexy word nor a sexy concept,” Philip said. “People looked at it as shortcuts, they looked at it as laziness… when in reality we are a mixture of different cultures, our parents and the diaspora.”

The 75-seat room lost money. Hirose wanted to provide quality experiences for patrons and stability for his employees; The money and the demand are less important, Philip said.

The family decided to open a small café in Little Tokyo in the former home of a hardware store that Jo Ann's family had operated for decades. Philip and Jo Ann plan to reopen the influential Anzen Hardware, founded by Philip's grandfather, in a new location in the next year or two and refocus on imported Japanese kitchen appliances.

Azay, a collaborative family initiative, brought some of Hirose's French dishes to the neighborhood, paired with more casual Japanese cuisine.

Under Akira, Azay served delicately presented salads in tarragon vinaigrette, potato galettes, beef bourguignon with pasta, classic soufflés, roasted quail and bûche de Noël as well as donburi, daily bento and Japanese breakfast.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the family shifted to takeout and producing boxes. Philip helped introduce his father to community organizing, often using the space to fundraise and cook for community meetings and protests, among other activities. Hirose taught his son restaurant life, and Philip introduced him to mutual aid and food as a political and community tool.

Two years ago, Philip quit his job in film production to join the family business full-time, after years of supporting Azay remotely and working there on weekends. He had spent most of his film career coordinating creatives on shoots. Why not do the same thing in his father's business instead?

“I believe that my father passed on to me the care of my team,” he said. “For him, the staff was his family. “He spent so much time with them.”

Philip leads the restaurant's wine program with a focus on central France, a nod to his father's culinary origins, and he now leads a small group of chefs who will continue Azay in honor of Akira Hirose.

In August, former Hansei, Eleven Madison Park and Citrin executive chef Chris Ono joined the team at Azay, taking over dinner service and giving Hirose nights off. The attempt was for two reasons: to learn from the chef and to build a more sustainable business model for Akira, who still worked at the restaurant seven days a week as he got older.

“I loved hearing the stories of all these legendary chefs and for me it connected us and really gave me insight into the past,” Ono told The Times. “Food and cuisine are a beautiful thing. If you know his story, you can fully understand this. He was a mentor and friend to me and always supported me in the few years I knew him. “He gave me a platform and welcomed me into Azay and I will forever be grateful for that.”

With the help of chefs Gary Matsumoto, Jared Mori and Ryan Saeki, all of whom help run the kitchen, Ono recently revamped Azay's dinner menu with a weekend prix-fixe that continues to include Japanese and French cuisine. On Saturday, Ono added one of Hirose's signature dishes to the menu: miso-marinated, locally caught Chilean sea bass on ratatouille and dandelion greens, served with Ono's beurre blanc-like sauce.

Other favorite dishes of his father, Philip said, will most likely also be on Azay's menu: rack of lamb, tarragon dressing, leeks, quail.

In the coming months, the team plans to host dinners in Hirose's honor, not only serving his signatures but also inviting some of the chefs who cooked with him in France, LA and Japan.

Even before his father's death, Philip dedicated time to learning more about Akira. His own interest in wine took him to many of the French villages and towns where his father lived and cooked decades ago. Taking a break to sample wine at local wineries, Philip settles into Akira's friends' couches, listening to stories and finding faded photos.

On a trip, he learned that his father's French friends had called him “the Rose of Touraine” – a reference to both the surname Hirose and a playful reference to the way his face turned red when he drank alcohol.

“I got to know him through other people's lenses, and when I was there I met a lot of people for the first time and they told me that I looked just like him when he was younger,” Philip said. “Even now, as we tell them the news, they say they felt he had a place in central France as the Japanese who really became one of them. “They saw him as one of their own.”

A memorial service for Hirose will be held in October. 13 at the Hompa Hongwanji Buddhist Temple in Los Angeles' Little Tokyo. Chefs in attendance are encouraged to dress in their chefs' white uniforms in their honor.