Meet the Team
The Owner
Chef Mistuo Kishimoto was born in Tokyo in 1971. He became an apprentice chef in 1988 & learned Kaiseki (Japanese traditional course style cuisine) at a prestigious Kaiseki restaurant in Tokyo. When he was thirty, he decided to move to the United States to make his dream come true. The first restaurant he opened as a head chef was in Seattle in 2001. The next year, he put himself in a more challenging city New York. In 2002, Chef Kishimoto met his mentor Chef Koji Imai who taught him the quintessence of food and then was introduced to join the MEGU staff for the opening of MEGU Tribeca and Midtown as the Executive Chef. In 2007, he moves to Las Vegas to seek a new challenge. In 2008, he opened his own restaurant “Unagi” in Las Vegas.
The Head Chef
Starting as a young chef in Richmond Virginia, Nate started from line cook to Executive Chef in several Steakhouse establishments. In 2003 was his first Executive Chef position at Capital Ale House in Richmond, Virginia. He moves to Las Vegas in 2005 and worked with the Wolfgang Puck Group’s Postrio Bar And Grill. During his time with the Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group he made his way from line cook, to banquet chef, to sous chef, to executive sous chef. He was then promoted to Sous Chef in 2008 and went to open Solaro at the Palazzo pool on the Strip. He moves on in 2012 to join Unagi. Here he learns the master art of Chef Kishimoto’s world of Japanese food. He masters every section in the kitchen and many Japanese words. In September 2015 he is asked to open our new West Hollywood Unagi. And he is still busy cooking.