Tohru Nakamura: Third Star – “a starting signal”

(18 May 2026) – For Tohru Nakamura, the third Michelin star did not mark the end of a journey, but rather the beginning of a new phase. In the Restaurant-Ranglisten.de podcast, the Munich-based chef explicitly describes the award for Tohru in the Schreiberei not as a “Lifetime Achievement Award”, but as a “starting point” for him and his team. The statement is characteristic of a conversation that focuses less on gestures of triumph and more on the question of how a restaurant and its chef continue to evolve after such a moment. Nakamura makes it clear that the latest accolade has brought him and his team one thing above all else: new opportunities, greater visibility and a different kind of financial stability. “Not a single day,” he says, “goes by when the restaurant isn’t fully booked,” yet at the same time he emphasises that he does not take this success for granted. This level-headedness is particularly remarkable at a time when many top restaurants are struggling with fluctuating demand. The third star has given the business new vigour, but also the scope to recruit more staff and expand the team.

It is particularly revealing how Nakamura speaks today about the development of his cuisine on the path to the third star. There was no single key moment when the third star became tangible; rather, it was the steady evolution that proved decisive. For him, this is explicitly not just about “what’s on the plate”, but about the restaurant’s overall performance. His cuisine has not changed through a radical reinvention, but through concentration, precision and calm. Looking back, he cites “the arrival of a certain calm, of a focus” as the greatest change. Whilst earlier dishes were still characterised by a time when “at least 30 components” were almost seen as proof of quality, Nakamura now places greater emphasis on reduction. For him, complexity no longer arises from visible abundance, but from internal concentration, for example in a sauce that is technically highly complex without imposing itself visually. It is a cuisine that seeks to impress less than before, but precisely because of this appears more confident.

This confidence is also evident in Nakamura’s approach to his own cultural background. He resists the simplistic label that the cuisine at Tohru is “Japanese”. As soon as butter comes into play, he says, one is “out of the realm of classic Japanese cuisine”. At the same time, he does not see his cuisine as a European base with Asian influences, or vice versa. Rather, he says, it has been “somewhere right in the middle, somewhere in between” from the very start, because his own life story, too, was shaped not sequentially but simultaneously by German and Japanese influences. In conversation, this approach becomes clear through several dishes: the rice course with tuna and shio-koji sauce, the chawanmushi with trout and sherry, or the pork dish with daikon, dashi and Périgord truffle. Time and again, it is about evoking familiar patterns whilst simultaneously shifting them. The fact that a dish may seem particularly European to one guest yet appear “most Japanese” to Nakamura himself is not a contradiction, but an expression of this intermediate position. He answers the question about signature dishes with similar caution. Some preparations, such as an “oyster from the embers” or the rice with sauce, already possess the potential for recognition. But Nakamura is less interested in the iconic individual dish than in the emotional return. “The purpose of this restaurant is interpersonal connection and emotionality,” he says. A return visit should not be based on wanting to eat a particular dish again, but on wanting to experience a particular feeling once more.

This touches on another central theme of the conversation: Nakamura’s development as a leader. He openly acknowledges that things have changed here in recent years. Above all, what has changed is the perspective on “how to deal with mistakes”, how to manage expectations and how to navigate life in general. The chef describes an earlier period at the Werneckhof when they tried to “race in Formula 1 in a Trabi” – a striking image for structural overload, cramped quarters and the enormous pressure of a highly rated restaurant operating under less than ideal conditions. Today, much of what he says sounds more thoughtful. Nakamura speaks of professional support, of social skills as an underestimated aspect of any leadership role, and of the need to develop talent not only in terms of technical skills but also on a human level. It is precisely this process of maturation that seems closely linked to the culinary refinement. The kitchen is now more at peace with itself, because its creator is evidently more at peace with himself too. He describes it as a growing self-assurance: one is no longer “too focused on external judgement”, but wants above all to create a restaurant where one “would prefer to be sitting here as a guest tonight”.

The fact that Nakamura does not overlook economic realism amidst all his artistic reflection makes the conversation all the more interesting. He speaks openly about capacity utilisation, cost structures, cancellations and the question of what size a restaurant can be if it wants to operate without compromise whilst still remaining economically viable. This, too, is one of the strengths of this podcast: He treats fine dining not as an aesthetic parallel universe, but as a fragile interplay of craftsmanship, atmosphere, leadership and the market. For Munich, Nakamura currently sees an oversupply with demand that has not grown to the same extent, but at the same time warns against watering down one’s own concept due to short-term pressure to adapt. Changes make sense if they sharpen the profile or translate it into new formats, not if they dissolve the identity. Thus, this conversation paints a nuanced picture of a chef who, whilst having reached the pinnacle externally, remains in a state of exploration internally. Perhaps that is precisely the real key to the third star: not the claim of having arrived, but the conviction that the journey continues. (Supported by AI)