Shota Nakajima Likes Being As Uncomfortable As He Can

The "Top Chef" fan favorite talks about fun mistakes, embracing the unknown, motivation from an anime monkey, and why cheerful finesse is his key to success.

Shota Nakajima and the Right Way to Move a Couch

Welcome to Season 1, Episode 4 of Tinfoil Swans, a new podcast from Food & Wine. New episodes drop every Tuesday. Listen and follow on: Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, TuneIn.

On this episode

In our fourth episode, Food & Wine's executive features editor Kat Kinsman catches up with the eternally optimistic Shota Nakajima. Many people may know him from his incredible run on Top Chef Season 18, his appearances on Food Network shows like Tournament of Champions and Iron Chef Gauntlet, his array of Seattle restaurants, or his extremely entertaining and educational Instagram feed. But before his rise to fame, Shota was a "punky looking" high school drop-out with his head deep in a sketchbook, or wandering into the woods looking for mushrooms and bugs, hoping to find his place in the world. Shota opened up about motivation, anime, moving a couch with his friends, never making a Plan B, and always valuing hospitality over food.  

Meet our guest

Shota Nakajima is the chef and owner of the Seattle restaurants Taku, an Osaka style Japanese fried chicken bar, and Kōbo, which specializes in Detroit-meets-Osaka pizza. Nakajima has been a semifinalist for the James Beard Foundation's Rising Star Chef of the Year award three time, and received Eater's Young Guns accolade in 2018. He was one of three finalists on Top Chef: Portland, eventually earning the designation of "Fan Favorite," as well as reaching the quarterfinals of Tournament of Champions, and besting the titular host of Beat Bobby Flay. Follow him on Instagram at @chefshota.

Related: Shop Like a Top Chef

Meet our host

Kat Kinsman is executive features editor at Food & Wine, author of Hi, Anxiety: Life With a Bad Case of Nerves, host of Food & Wine's podcast, and founder of Chefs With Issues. Previously, she was the senior food & drinks editor at Extra Crispy, editor-in-chief and editor at large at Tasting Table, and the founding editor of CNN Eatocracy. She won a 2020 IACP Award for Personal Essay/Memoir and has had work included in the 2020 and 2016 editions of The Best American Food Writing. She was nominated for a James Beard Broadcast Award in 2013, won a 2011 EPPY Award for Best Food Website with 1 million unique monthly visitors, and was a finalist in 2012 and 2013. She is a sought-after international keynote speaker and moderator on food culture and mental health in the hospitality industry, and is the former vice chair of the James Beard Journalism Committee.

Related: Antoni Porowski Opens Up About Anxiety, Red Lobster, and Hanging Out With Martha Stewart

Advice from the episode

Drawn out

When I was in school, all I remember is drawing. I just drew all the time. Science, history, all of that, I would have a beautiful masterpiece in an hour. Did I learn anything? Something about something, maybe.

Lessons learned

I'm so lucky that I found the restaurant industry when I was young. I was failing at school and it doesn't really help with confidence. But at a job, I showed up on time, and I tried as hard as I could, and I showed up every single day, and that was congratulated all the time. They would teach me more things, and I would learn, and I would feel great about myself, and I wanted to learn more. I started to get more ambitious.

Question everything

I'm good at learning what I'm interested in at the moment. One of my high skills, is that if I don't know anything, I will find the answer. It might take a second. I might ask you a few questions, but I'll find the answer.

You're welcome

There's two types of chefs, right? The ones who love hospitality over food, and the ones who love food over hospitality. I think they both have their strength, and it's wonderful when you can find a great team that can work together. But for me, I'm a hospitality-forward person. For me, the biggest thing that matters in restaurants over the food and everything is, "Do they feel welcome when they come home? Do they  feel heard when they come in?" That's all that matters.

Ship shape

I'm confident that I have made more mistakes than all of my managers. And I'm not ashamed to say that, because that makes me good at my job. That makes me wiser at my job. When I was 25, I was operating a restaurant, I made a bunch of mistakes. Now [the mindset] is, "OK, how do I teach the people around me that it doesn't have to be that tough?" I tried to move that restaurant. I tried to move that couch by myself for a very long time with very loyal support. But I'm 33 now. I want a team. I want a team of people now to do it. I want a team of people I can get rich with. I want a team of people that we can inspire and build something cool with. You know, everyone having their own goals within, and we're  just sitting on the same ship.

Relentless finesse

Luffy from One Piece is a relentless dreamer of becoming a pirate king in the ocean. But his anime is fun because it doesn't actually cover him the whole time. It's about him pretty much gathering a crew together that have their own goals, and they do it with finesse. And when I say they do it with finesse, they know how to smile and have a good time while they do it.

About the podcast

Food & Wine has led the conversation around food, drinks, and hospitality in America and around the world since 1978. Tinfoil Swans continues that legacy with a new series of intimate, informative, surprising, and uplifting interviews with the biggest names in the culinary industry, sharing never-before-heard stories about the successes, struggles, and fork-in-the-road moments that made these personalities who they are today.

Each week, you'll hear from icons and innovators like Guy Fieri, Padma Lakshmi, David Chang, Mashama Bailey, Enrique Olvera, Maneet Chauhan, Shota Nakajima, Antoni Porowski, and other special guests going deep with host Kat Kinsman on their formative experiences; the dishes and meals that made them; their joys, doubts and dreams; and what's on the menu in the future. Tune in for a feast that'll feed your brain and soul — and plenty of wisdom and quotable morsels to savor.

New episodes drop every Tuesday. Listen and follow on: Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, TuneIn.

These interview excerpts have been edited for clarity.

Download the Transcript

Editor’s Note: The transcript for download does not go through our standard editorial process and may contain inaccuracies and grammatical errors.

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