Fumio Yonezawa (米澤文雄) has a motto he returns to often: Food is the greatest tool for building the future. It sounds like the kind of thing chefs say. In his case, it is an operating principle — one that has driven him from a childhood fascination with food in Tokyo's Asakusa district to the kitchens of three-Michelin-starred New York, back to Japan, and now to Taipei, where his restaurant No Code opened in May 2026.
The journey took 30 years, several reinventions, and a deliberate decision to stop being what the fine dining world expected him to be.
The Boy from Asakusa Who Decided at 16
Yonezawa was born in 1980 in Asakusa, the old shitamachi neighbourhood on Tokyo's eastern edge — historically a place of craftsmen, tradespeople, and temples rather than restaurants. He grew up with a strong, early interest in food that was less about eating well and more about understanding what food could do. By 16, he had made his decision: he was going to cook professionally.
He began his apprenticeship in French cuisine in Tokyo, working through the discipline and hierarchy of classical kitchens. It was a thorough formation — but he was already thinking beyond Japan. In 2002, at 22, he flew to New York alone, walked into the world of Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and started over.
Jean-Georges: Four Years to Make History
Jean-Georges on Central Park West is not an easy room to rise in. At the time Yonezawa arrived, it had held three Michelin stars continuously for over a decade and was considered one of the most technically demanding French kitchens in the United States.
He spent four years there. In 2006, he was appointed sous chef — the first Japanese chef in the history of the flagship restaurant to hold that position. It was not an honorary title. It meant running the kitchen.
That milestone was significant beyond the personal achievement. It demonstrated that a Japanese chef trained outside the French system's traditional European pipeline could earn authority at its highest level — through skill, not through lineage.
Coming Home, Then Building Something New
Yonezawa returned to Japan in 2010 and was appointed Chef de Cuisine at Jean-Georges Tokyo. In 2013 the restaurant earned a Michelin star — a result he shaped directly. Two years later, in 2015, he received the Gold award at RED U-35, Japan's most prestigious competition for chefs under 35, becoming the first Japanese chef to claim that recognition.
By 2018 he had enough. Not enough of cooking — enough of existing within other people's frameworks. He opened The Burn in Aoyama: a sustainable grill restaurant that reflected his growing conviction that great food and environmental responsibility were not competing priorities. It was also the first restaurant that was entirely his own.
But The Burn was still a restaurant in the conventional sense. Yonezawa was already thinking about something different.
No Code: When a Chef Becomes a Creative Lab
In 2020 Yonezawa founded No Code — not first as a dining room, but as a company, a philosophy, and what he calls a "Chef+" practice. The term is his own coinage: a chef who operates beyond the kitchen, engaging with food sustainability, food waste reduction, youth mentorship, and product development as seriously as he engages with the plate.
He holds a sommelier's qualification alongside his culinary credentials, and supervises original pairing menus. He consults for major food companies on sustainability and vegan cuisine, has authored a published book on plant-based cooking, and oversees in-flight dining for JAL's international business class. The No Code brand expanded to include NY Bistro by No Code in Shin-Marunouchi and Hitsuji Public, both launched in 2024.
The dining room in Nishi-Azabu — eight seats, reservation only — followed in 2022. Deliberately small, deliberately flexible, it was designed to function as a test kitchen as much as a restaurant. Menus shift with ingredients and ideas. The pace of adjustment is faster than any conventional fine dining operation would allow.
"Food," his official mission statement reads, "is the greatest tool for creating the future. Do not be bound by convention. Keep creating new value."
At No Code, that is not branding. It is the job description.
Taipei: The Next Condition to Cook In
No Code Taipei opened in May 2026 in Da'an District — the latest extension of a practice that has always been defined by movement and adaptation. Executive Chef Moriwaki Shohei, who trained under Yonezawa for nearly a decade, relocated his family to Taiwan after two years of groundwork, spending months building relationships with local producers before a single dish was served.
Yonezawa did not replicate Tokyo in Taipei. The format is more accessible by design — he has spoken of wanting it to be the kind of restaurant someone visits once or twice a week, which is a completely different creative challenge from a destination dining room. A restaurant that earns repeat visits must reward familiarity. Flavour must be precise without becoming remote.
The kitchen works within a framework of European technique built through Japanese fermentation and a wide range of global spices. Taiwanese ingredients — the sweetness of local vegetables, the moisture content of produce grown in this climate, the native pepper maqaw with its distinct citrus character — enter the cooking not as exotic additions but as working conditions that change the outcome.
When something doesn't balance, he tastes it again. And again. The dish is finished, Yonezawa has said, when he tastes it and immediately thinks: this is what I wanted. There is no external metric for that moment. The standard is internal, and it is high.
What He Is Building
At 45, Fumio Yonezawa has the CV of someone who could have stopped moving a long time ago. First Japanese sous chef at Jean-Georges. Michelin star in Tokyo. Gold at RED U-35. Multiple restaurants. A book. An airline. A hotel consultancy. A company.
He hasn't stopped. The No Code mission — don't be bound by convention, keep creating new value — reads as autobiography as much as philosophy. Asakusa taught him to be curious. New York taught him to be precise. Japan gave him the platform. Now he is asking what food can actually do: for the people eating it, for the people growing it, for the industry that shapes it, and for the cities that receive it. （Related： Happy City Index 2026: Copenhagen Leads Global Rankings as Taipei and New Taipei Enter Top 50 ｜ Latest ）
Taipei is the latest answer to that question.
