Hiromi Yamada

Did You Know?

• In 1994, he appeared as a challenger on Iron Chef, competing against Iron Chef Chinese Chen Kenichi in a battle themed around cabbage.
• He returned to Iron Chef in 2013 for its rebooted format after a long absence from television cooking competitions.

Restaurants

Hiromi Yamada was born on January 27, 1953, in Asakusa, Tokyo, and became a chef specializing in Italian cuisine. He started cooking as a teenager and later focused on Italian food. During the 1980s and 1990s, he worked as head chef at several Italian restaurants in Tokyo, a time when Italian cuisine was becoming more popular in Japan. In the mid-1980s, he was head chef at Basta Pasta in Harajuku, a restaurant noted in food culture writing about early Italian cuisine in Tokyo.

In the mid-1990s, he was head chef at Ristorante Hiro in Minami-Aoyama, part of the upscale Italian dining scene. In the 2000s, he was head chef at Hirosophy, an Italian restaurant brand in Nishi-Azabu and Ginza. In April 2018, he opened TEST KITCHEN H in Minami-Aoyama, and in December 2020, he opened Infinito Hiro in Akasaka, where he is owner-chef. Both restaurants made the Tabelog Italian TOKYO Top 100 list in 2023 and 2025. He also appeared on the TV show Iron Chef in 1994 and again in 2013.