She’s touted as the best female vegetarian chef in the world. Hailing from Minami-uonuma, a mountainous region peppered with beech forests and terraced rice fields outside Niigata in Japan, Keiko Kuwakino’s food philosophy revolves around produce from the mountains: Working with local farmers and foragers to both support the local community and ensures that the plants, tubers, grains and nuts she cooks with retain their maximum nutritional value and energy potential.

It’s at Sanaburi, the Michelin-starred restaurant within Satoyama Jujo, a luxury boutique hotel, that Keiko brings her philosophy to life. Working with mainly seasonal plants, but also fish and other animal proteins, she creates menus which are both pure and light and enhanced with her own fermentations.

It’s a food philosophy that has earned Keiko a slew of awards: From World’s Best Female Vegetable Chef by We’re Smart World in 2023, to Two Knives at The Best Chef Awards in 2024. Sanaburi has 1-Michelin star. It also has a Terroir Award and holds a score of 15.5 by Gault Millau.

Join Keiko for dinner on March 14 or 15 at Po, the flagship restaurant of The Warehouse Hotel, where she will be presenting plant forward tasting menus.