Jiro Ono, born in Shizuoka Prefecture, has dedicated his life to the way of the kitchen knife ever since he was only nine years old, when he became an apprentice at an inn serving traditional cuisine. Hoping to make it as a sushi chef, he headed to Tokyo at the age of twenty-six. The rest is history. Due to a bad burn he suffered on his right hand when he was little, he’s known as “the left-handed nigiri maestro.”

Born in Setagaya, Tokyo, the late Shinzo Satomi started a ramen shop when he was in high school but gave up after only half a year. Despite detours—a university education in eighteenth-century French literature and classical economics, and life as a “salaryman”—his culinary interests never abated. His Best Of series on ramen, donburi, etc., won him renown as the proponent of an unpretentious gourmandise.