Shota Nakajima needed Top Chef. The Seattle native had a hard year before competing in Portland, having closed two of his dream restaurants and hitting rock bottom before getting on the path to sobriety. In arriving on the Emmy-winning series, he hoped to earn some winnings to see his son in Japan while also showcasing Japanese cuisine in a brand-new way. And from that perspective, it could also be argued that Top Chef needed Shota Nakajima. His passion for Japanese food is as infectious as his laugh, impressing the judges all season long. Though Shota did not wind up the top chef of the season, he certainly was one to the audience, who gave him the fan-favorite prize. Part of the reason Shota came onto Top Chef was to inspire kids who looked like him not to be ashamed of their roots, as he was during his childhood. But those intentions got muddled in the beginning, when Shota himself would admit he got caught up in cooking for the challenge rather than his own food. That being said, he never lost his footing on his stride to the finale. He was the most consistent performer the entire season, only landing in the bottom with the judges once the entire season. He won the most Elimination Challenges this season, particularly excelling working in pair challenges alongside Avishar Barua and Sara Hauman. He was a key part of arguably the best Restaurant Wars performance in the show’s history. The momentum was building for Shota going into the final cook, where he decided to pivot into soulful cooking rather than fine dining. It’s a choice that became a $250,000 error, as his disconnected meal combined with some crunchy rice denied Shota the win. But his humorous, humble, and unique take on the competition connected with viewers, who voted him this season’s fan favorite. Read on to hear Shota’s thoughts on his time in the game. We’re talking a little over a week after the season finished, as well as you being awarded Fan Favorite. How are you feeling after this whirlwind? I guess I haven’t realized that it’s only been a week, because I just have not stopped working. It’s incredibly surreal. I think I’m still in the process of processing what everything is, taking it day by day. You had an incredibly stressful year prior to coming onto Top Chef. What made you ultimately decide to enter that pressure cooker, given everything going on with your life? When I was younger, I made intense decisions. I would say, “I’m struggling with some part of my life. So I’m gonna put my life in a duffel bag and go to Japan.” I always have done intense things to myself, try to figure myself out when I feel low. This time was definitely going back to that, not knowing what I had to do next. It was the first time in five years I didn’t have employees under me. I didn’t have a restaurant to go work at tomorrow. So I was honestly very confused. Then there’s this phone call that told me I was selected for Top Chef this year. It was very scary. My initial reaction was to say no. And then my second reaction was, “You know what, that’s really scary. I should say yes.” Given that intense situation you’re mentioning, what was your headspace initially going into the season? I went in with the mindset of, “I haven’t gotten to talk with people, and I get to cook and interact with people in the kitchen.” I started working in restaurants when I was 15, so I feel like there’s a big part of how I communicate as a person. I feel comfortable expressing myself in the way I work, making jokes while working, and whatnot. So I was excited about that. I thought, “I’m just gonna give everything that I have tried to represent Japanese culture, to showcase something that hadn’t really been showcased over here as dishes and just widen and try to give the viewers something new and exciting.” You said in a confessional that you came into the season cooking to meet the requirements of the challenge, rather than what you wanted to make. When did that mindset shift? It was during the Tillamook cheese challenge. I had a dish I really wanted to do, a classic that I’ve made so many times. So I thought, “You know what? I want to do that with whatever I get next,” which was mixing in the cheese. And it all came out way better than I thought! You also mentioned at one point that you didn’t take criticism well, bringing up a memory of a bad review from one of your restaurants. How tough was it to deal with that feedback from the judges throughout the season? I do, in the moment, take it to heart. It gets me down. But then I sleep. Every day, even without the competition, I’m a person that wakes up, and I’m like, “I’m gonna try to be the nicest and the best person I can be.” So I try to forget about what happened yesterday and move on. There were a couple of times during the season, particularly the Pan-African challenge and the indigenous cultures challenge, when you connected it back to things you saw in Japanese cuisine. What was it like finding those points of similarity? That’s actually one of my favorite parts of cooking. When I had [my restaurant] Adana, I always hired non-Japanese chefs from different backgrounds. When I work with people in the same cuisine, I don’t learn as much. It’s always interesting to talk to chefs from different cultures because they have a different mindsets. Even when it comes to the timing of garlic or the use of sodium and sugar, it’s all different, but it has logical sense. I love nerding out about stuff like that. It’s fun to think about the mixes and the similarities. To that point, we saw a couple of times you took tips on using spice, for example, from your fellow cheftestants. Has interacting with them inspired you outside of the show? 100%. I mean, I used to have only one kind of dried chilis. Now I have seven. I talk to Avishar a lot, so now I know more about weird science things because he will go on and on with 20 pages of random beautiful documents. I’ve spoken to many of your cast members about how close you became as a group this season. Do you think your particular bonding came from everything around the pandemic or the particular configuration of chefs? I’m gonna speak for myself. But for me, I was just taking every bit with appreciation because I lost my restaurant. The fact that I got to cook with amazing chefs while events were being canceled. I was just appreciative of every moment. And I would assume a lot of people were in similar boats, going through stuff in their restaurants. Back to the criticism conversation, Japanese cuisine is not something everyone has experience with. Did you have that in the back of your head when the judges were talking to you? And to that point, were you surprised when you found how positively they received your cooking in general? I really was. The logic behind why and understanding my dish and breaking it down was incredibly impressive. It was nice that I got to do the food I did and serve it to people with so much experience on their palate. And for them to enjoy it means the world to me. That’s always a hard line, doing a different cultural food over here. You get the question of, “Okay, what is this dish? This dish is too subtle or doesn’t have acidity. Can you try to bring it forward?” And now you get guests asking, “Is this authentic?” So it’s a never-ending journey, but I’ve always wanted to be judged by the flavor. It was very, very nice that if your food tasted good and made sense, that was appreciated. Let’s get into the finale. You decide to go for more soulful cooking in your final cook, and you admitted after the fact that you should have gone for more of a kaiseki/fine dining approach. Do you still agree with that? I think I could have done the same dishes. But I could have tweaked them. Maybe I didn’t need to do rice with the beef. Maybe I could have done a seared vegetable underneath with the nice piece of beef tongue and still do this same concept and approach, but a little bit more my style. We hear Melissa King being particularly critical of your second course, saying it felt like a side dish rather than a course on its own. How do you respond to that feedback? I understand it. Maybe I could have done a lighter dish with more acidity, so it seemed like it was meant to cut through. I just wanted to do a veggie-forward dish that was clean and simple. After the judges’ feedback, what did you think your chances were of winning? I really didn’t know. And I didn’t want to expect anything because I didn’t want to be disappointed. I always have that mentality. But if Gabe won, I was super ready to be happy for him as well. I was more than anything proud to be standing there. Before the finale, I was proud to even sign onto Top Chef and have that courage to do that. Even before Gabe’s name was called, I was still understanding that we just did our final cook. We didn’t need to take a break and get a COVID test and go into a Quickfire. I didn’t give up in the middle. I accomplished my goal until the very end, and I was very proud of myself. You mentioned Avishar before, and I see “Team Little Fish” is still going strong with you and Sara doing events. Which cast members have you kept up with the most? I don’t get along with Sarah at all. It’s all for the cameras. (Laughs.) No, we’re really good friends. We talk often. I also talk to Byron and Avishar a lot. I really talk to everyone. I talk to Roscoe, Brittanny, Kiki, everyone here and there. Sometimes Instagram messages, sometimes phone calls. Next Monday, I’m doing a “friends and family” dinner at the end of the day. And I’m also training my staff, so I’m gonna be super busy. And guess who’s coming to train my staff that day? Byron and Avishar! You just talked about training staff. So what’s been the status of any possible restaurant reopenings since Top Chef? I think it’s up and up a bit. My big goal of a restaurant on Capitol Hill in Seattle went through many things last year. My friends and family still in Japan think it’s a dangerous place. As a community member, I’ve had the goal to do a lot of events right now to bring that positive energy back. I want to change the conversation and make Capitol Hill a fun place. You said at one point you hoped being on Top Chef would inspire kids who turned away their cultures because they didn’t want to seem weird, much like you did. What has the reception from the AAPI been like in your time on the show? I’ve gotten so many messages. It hasn’t stopped! I’m very proud of myself for being vulnerable in that moment and saying that in front of the camera. Because I think a lot of people felt that way. And I think it’s important to encourage people just to recognize it. That was my favorite part of the whole experience. And I’m planning to do more things with charities as well. Well, you do now have a bit of cash flow from your fan-favorite prize. Do you have any ideas of what you’ll do with that? Donation-wise, I work with the Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority, a nonprofit in Seattle. I started a program with them recently where I’d do charity dinners. In a dinner I did recently, we raised almost $10,000. And I think I might use some of it working with a children’s book company. They’re writing a book regarding the topic we were just speaking about. So I’d be working with them a little more and helping continue the conversation. Finally, do you have any recommendations for chefs or patrons as the world begins to reopen for the restaurant industry at large? I would say go out, buy gift cards, and support. What’s hard right now is that everyone has a lot less staff coming back. We’re retraining, and staffs are short everywhere. So be kind. Next, check out our interview with fellow finalist Dawn Burrell.
