Tetsuya Wakuda grew up in the Japanese town of Hamamatsu, and at the age of twenty-two, armed with his only piece of information about Australia ? that there were lots of koalas and kangaroos around ? and having only a limited grasp of English, he decided to travel to Australia.

Arriving in Sydney in 1982 with nothing more than a small suitcase and a love of food, Tetsuya landed his very first job as a kitchen hand at Fishwives in Surry Hills. A year later he was introduced to Sydney chef Tony Bilson, who was looking for a Japanese cook to make sushi. It was there in Tony's kitchen at Kinsela's Tetsuya realised that he wanted to cook, and could cook very well! Here he also learnt the classical French technique that forms part of his unique style today.

"I made up a lot of things along the way, and luckily for me, people liked the way it tasted."

Tetsuya left Kinsela's in 1983, and, in partnership with the head-waiter, opened Ultimo's, where he quickly learnt about the responsibility of running his own business. His own restaurant, Tetsuya's opened in 1989 as a tiny shopfront in the Sydney suburb of Rozelle and was booked out with daily waiting lists.

In November 2000, Tetsuya relocated his restaurant from Rozelle to 529 Kent Street, Sydney. Tetsuya has refurbished the heritage-listed site to create his dream restaurant offering a bar, private dining rooms and a large main dining room space overlooking a Japanese garden. The restaurant also features a large custom-made kitchen that will continue to deliver Tetsuya's unique cuisine based on the Japanese philosophy of natural seasonal flavours, enhanced by classic French technique.