Tatsushi Shiokawa, 39, enrolled in 1991 at Le Cordon Bleu, Tokyo, where he was the only male student in his class. The following year he completed the three-part Classic Cycle -- then opened Bistro Campagne in Tokyo's Asakusabashi district.
"I always wanted to be a chef and straight out of high school I worked at a yoshoku (Western-style) restaurant for five years. It was proper French-style cooking, though, and that interested me.
"It was the bubble era, and at the time nouvelle cuisine was very popular in Japan. People misunderstood traditional French cooking, because they thought it was heavy and rather formal. Nouvelle cuisine seemed to fit better with Japanese ingredients and people's tastes.