Shiseido-Managed FARO's Pastry Chef Mineko Kato Wins Asia's Best Pastry Chef Award

Mineko Kato, the pastry chef at FARO, an innovative Italian restaurant in Ginza, Tokyo, managed by Shiseido and operated by Shiseido Parlour, won the Best Pastry Chef in Asia award at the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants awards event held on March 26, 2024. FARO, located on the 10th floor of the Shiseido Building in Tokyo's Ginza, offers modern and original creations that are not confined to the framework of Italian cuisine. Here, where food culture that is delicious, beautiful, and is fundamentally mindful of sustainability is undertaken, Kato broadly captures the realm of gourmet food and is committed to making creative desserts with less environmental impact and in harmony with the natural environment. This award highly evaluated her conviction toward the possibility of creating a harmonious coexistent relationship between humans and nature through food.

Asia's 50 Best Restaurants and Asia's Best Pastry Chef
Awards at the prestigious awards event Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants are determined by the votes of the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants Academy composed of 318 influential food writers, critics, chefs, restaurant owners, and regional cuisine experts. It is an awards event that is closely watched by food lovers around the world. Chef Mineko Kato of FARO has won the award of ”Asia’s Best Pastry Chef.”

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FARO's Pastry Chef Mineko Kato's Comment

Our pastry team at FARO is committed to creating desserts with a low environmental impact, and we are delighted that our plant-based desserts have been highly recognized at such a prestigious event. There are many challenges in the world of food, but we take the impact of climate change seriously and are committed to realizing a sustainable food culture. Gourmet food is not just about delicious and beautiful food. If we can convey the important recognition of harmonizing with nature, being mindful of sustainability from the ground up, and enriching the natural environment and human activities through our healing desserts, the world of food may become even more beautiful. I sincerely hope to see an increase in comrades and colleagues in the Japanese confectionery industry who value sustainability.

Mineko Kato’s Profile
Interested in design, fine arts, contemporary art, and craftsmanship, Mineko Kato chose the path of bread and pastry making from the field of food. She served as a pastry chef for about 10 years at renowned Michelin-starred restaurants in Italy, such as Il Luogo di Aimo e Nadia, Il Marchesino, Mandarin Oriental Milan (Milan), and Osteria Francescana (Modena). She also gained experience in the chocolate department of Enoteca Pinchiorri (Florence). Since 2018, she has been the pastry chef at FARO. Her aim at FARO is to create a restaurant that leaves an impression on the minds of people who come as if they have just experienced something special by offering desserts that respect Japanese nature and Japanese herbs. She is committed to creating desserts by paying attention to ingredients such as homemade yeast. She won the Best Patissier Award in Gault ＆ Millau 2022 and the Top Patissier Award in LA LISTE JAPANESE AWARDS 2024.

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More about FARO Restaurant

Located on the 10th floor of the Tokyo Ginza Shiseido Building, FARO offers modern and original creations (cuisine) that go beyond the bounds of Italian cuisine by combining the tradition and innovation of modern Italian cuisine with the richness of Japanese ingredients and culture. FARO is now particularly focused on its vegan course. The course menu is not only for vegans but for the many people who want to experience delicious food and feel beautiful both inside and out. The feeling is also that the vegan lifestyle has the potential for offering sustainability and harmony, and that is why the restaurant is pursuing initiatives that will enable “living a happy and fulfilling life while protecting the beauty of earth and society” through a diet that does not burden the environment or animals.

An example of Kato's creation

”Almond Ethical Rose Embrace”
This vegan dessert features a sauce crafted in the manner of perfume-making, centered around fragrant roses grown through natural farming methods, and blended with domestic organic basil, lemon, orange, lime, and red perilla. It is complemented by the sensual aroma of an Italian heirloom variety of almonds that has yet to be introduced to Japan.

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Shiseido's restaurant business

Shiseido started its business in Ginza, Tokyo, in 1872 as the first private Western-style pharmacy in Japan. Inspired by the drug stores he had visited in the U.S. on return from the World Exposition in Paris in 1900, the founder, Arinobu Fukuhara, installed a soda fountain in a section of the Shiseido pharmacy in 1902 to manufacture and sell the country’s first soda water as well as ice cream, a rare delicacy at the time.
In 1928, Shiseido opened Shiseido Parlour, a company that started by serving authentic Western cuisine. As one of the pioneers of Western culinary experiences as well as a symbol of Ginza, it continues to propose new values to its many patrons and strives to embody Shiseido’s mission of “BEAUTY INNOVATIONS FOR A BETTER WORLD” from the culinary field.