By Tiffany Ran
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY

Chef Shota Nakajima, as seen on Iron Chef Gauntlet, Season 1.
Seattle native and chef Shota Nakajima is among a group of chefs from across the nation participating in the new Food Network show “Iron Chef Gauntlet,” where chef contestants compete for a shot at becoming an Iron Chef. The show, an iteration of a former show “The Next Iron Chef” (2007-2012), places contestants through grueling secret ingredient challenges and pits them against iconic Iron Chefs like Bobby Flay, Masaharu Morimoto, and Michael Symon. Symon was named an Iron Chef as the first winner of “The Next Iron Chef.”
Nakajima watched the Japanese version of Iron Chef when he was younger and, at the young age of 27, might soon become one. At 18, he moved to Osaka, Japan and attended Tsuji Culinary Arts School before apprenticing under Michelin star chef Yasuhiko Sakamoto and returning to Seattle to work at Taichi Kitamura’s Sushi Kappo Tamura in Eastlake. Nakajima owns and operates Adana Restaurant in Capitol Hill, the new face of Nakajima’s previous restaurant Naka Kaiseki. “Kaiseki” is seasonally inspired multi-course meals created with a wide range of skills, technique, and precision, but Adana now serves Japanese comfort food at friendlier price points. The menu at Adana and Nakajima’s cooking style is inspired by his mother’s home cooking and Pacific Northwest ingredients.
“I loved doing kaiseki, but because of the check average, we weren’t getting a lot of regulars. Our regulars were coming back every 3 months. I like to see the same faces over and over again, so we dropped our price point and featured more homey food that’s still introducing different kinds of Japanese foods through that menu,” said Nakajima.
Beginning Sunday, April 16 at 9 p.m., we’ll be able to see him battle it out against six other contestants to claim the Iron Chef title. Nakajima is cool headed about his television involvement — “It’s just cooking at the end of the day” — and regarding the prized Iron Chef moniker as “a cool title,” he celebrates more the challenge of taking part in the show. Now back at Adana from his whirlwind challenge, he along with the Adana team, have introduced a new spring menu, including an entree inspired by a dish Nakajima’s mother often made — sake braised clams with a touch of soy and sesame oil, which at Adana, also includes foraged morels and fiddlehead ferns. Nakajima keeps in touch with contestants he met through the show saying he plans to fly out to do a collaborative dinner with one of them. But is Seattle the home of the next Iron Chef? We’ll have to wait and see.
For more information about “Iron Chef Gauntlet,” visit foodnetwork.com/shows/iron-chef-gauntlet.
Tiffany can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.
Awesome guy, amazing Chef.
Love you tons