Travels and Choices: The Story of Thierry Voisin

"You made the right choice."

With a smile, Voisin delivered a brief message to guests who have chosen the Imperial Hotel.

While he has spent twenty years leading Les Saisons, his journey with cuisine goes back fifty years.

"I learned everything from Chef Boyer. He’s like a father to me, which is why my food is still based in classical French cuisine. Having a basic structure allows me to bring new impact and create truly interesting recipes. Les Saisons has a signature dish called 'Black Truffle in Pastry', a recipe Chef Boyer inherited from his own grandfather. I've continued this incredibly important dish to share the essence of French cuisine with the people of Japan."

While Chef Voisin pursued this classical French path, a turning point arrived in his career about ten years into his time at Les Crayères.

So, what sorts of possibilities did life in Japan offer to Chef Voisin's culinary philosophy?

"Miso, katsuobushi, kombu, vinegar. My encounters with different Japanese ingredients each season were truly fantastic. For example, one classical French dish is 'the soup Parisian,' a cold leek and potato potage. What happens when you add Japanese spring vegetables and flowers, as well as a katsuobushi and vinegar cream? These Japanese ingredients can bring even further refinement to French cuisine."

These new possibilities weren’t limited to ingredients alone. Chef Voisin came to lead a Japanese team at Les Saisons.

"I think that Japanese people always have a very strong drive to accomplish things as a team, and this has also motivated me a lot. Our team at Les Saisons is about thirty people in total; the youngest member is twenty years old, while the oldest turned sixty-one this July—that's me, by the way!  Everyone respects and regards one another, just like a family. In Japan, there's a culture of being considerate to others. Though I stumbled with communicating at first, that gap vanished the moment we all started cooking together. It taught me that genuine connection isn't about language; it's about seeing with your heart. "

Chef Voisin speaks in a mixture of Japanese, French, and English. His team at Les Saisons has created countless new dishes over the past twenty years.

It seems the kitchen scene Chef Voisin encountered during a family vacation at the age of eight continues to shape his life even now.

"Looking back on my twenty years at Les Saisons, it has been a continuous process of self-denial. But not in a negative way. My motivation came from constantly asking myself, how do I change what I've done until now? When I wake up early at five in the morning, I start thinking about what kind of dishes I'll make that day. If I lost that sort of motivation, I might pursue a different career outside of cooking. Ever since the day I decided to become a chef, though, new ideas have always come to me. That’s been true from the time I learned at Les Crayères to my time now living in Japan to work at Les Saisons."

The journey is a source of unanticipated inspiration for us all. We at the Imperial Hotel hope to continue providing our guests with new scenes for their own stories.
If you visit Les Saisons at the Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, you should definitely meet Chef Thierry Voisin. He might just share a "love story of a life" that couldn't be fully revealed in our interview.