A man to admire, Roy Yamaguchi has discovered what he loves doing best and has excelled at doing it. Born in 1956 and raised on a U.S. military base in Tokyo, Yamaguchi set his professional goal high: to attend the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in upstate New York. He did just that. After being graduated in 1976, he worked for 12 years in Los Angeles, rising to the position of executive chef at some of the city's finest restaurants, including at his own nationally acclaimed establishment 385 North.

His arrival in Hawaii in late 1988 marked a dramatic turning point for the island's style of regional cuisine, as he successfully adapted his unique and highly personal fusion of Asian flavors and European techniques to Hawaiian food. The results were instantaneously applauded.

The first Roy's Restaurant in East Honolulu was dubbed the "crown jewel of Hawaii's east-west eateries" by Food & Wine magazine, was featured in a Bon Appe'tit cover story, listed in the "Top 50" by Conde' Nast Traveler, named in the "Gault-Millau Top 40" in Forbes FYI and featured in Nation's Restaurant News' "Fine Dining Hall of Fame."

He has also established himself internationally as the host of PBS' "Hawaii Cooks with Roy Yamaguchi" and as the author of Roy's Feasts From Hawaii. Roy's restaurant concept has been successfully transplanted to three other Hawaiian islands, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Guam, and across the U.S.

Transplanting 'Ohana into the Kitchen