Dream Team Dinners Washington D.C.
My Mother Taught Me Everything I Know
Masako Morishita is the executive chef of Perry’s in Washington, D.C. She is the first Japanese-born woman to helm the restaurant’s kitchen and is winner of the James Beard Foundation’s 2024 Emerging Chef award.
On Thursday, May 29, 2025, Morishita will collaborate with her mother, Ryoko, on a four-course dinner at Perry’s as part of The Resy Dream Team Dinners series. Get tickets here (terms apply).
The first thing I ever learned to cook was a dumpling. When I was only two years old, my mom taught me how to fold and pinch soft dough into perfect little gyoza. (Well, hers were perfect.)
These early memories, shaping dumplings in the kitchen of Morishita Saketen, my family’s tiny tachinomi in Kobe, Japan, have shaped each chapter of my life. Eventually, it led me to carry on my mother’s 50-year culinary legacy in my very own kitchen.
It all started in 1976 when my mom, then a sake brewery sales representative, met my father at the restaurant that’s now been in our family for 93 years. Soon after, they got married and took over the business from his family, with him behind the bar, and her in the kitchen. Their own family grew out of the place where they fell in love.
Every day after school, I’d come home to Morishita Saketen, which was just below where we lived. I’d sit in the restaurant, taking in the bustle of the kitchen, breathing in the aromas from the stoves, and tasting whatever my mom was cooking.
As with any family business, I was a key source of labor to help the small team, and I loved doing any odd jobs that were appropriate for a child, from shopping for ingredients to running the cash register. At the beginning though, I was scared to work in the kitchen with my mom. My clumsy little hands only seemed to slow her down.
But even before I became a practiced chef, I was an adventurous eater, and my palate was well trained by the incredible flavors my mom could conjure from a combination of traditional Japanese ingredients paired with unconventional ones. Now, no matter where I am, when I close my eyes, certain scents and tastes transport me right back to her kitchen.
It’s what anchored me when I was a 16-year-old exchange student in a tiny village in the northwest corner of Wisconsin, or, years later, when I was captain of the Washington Commanders’ cheer squad, thousands of miles away from Kobe. I took great comfort in the family recipes I brought with me. For me, home isn’t a place, it’s a flavor.
During my time with the NFL, the warming Japanese curries I made for team potlucks were my way of sharing a piece of my culture with my newfound community, and the positive responses from my teammates inspired me to expand to a larger audience.
After retiring from dance, I began hosting pop-ups on the weekends while working an office job. Eventually, I gained enough traction to lead my own kitchen at Perry’s.
She’s the chef I admire the most, and she’s the one who is in my kitchen with me in spirit every day.— Masako Morishita on her mother, Ryoko
When I was a growing up, my mom and I fought a lot. But even when we weren’t speaking, she’d make sure I had something to eat. And even when I was mad, I couldn’t deny how delicious her food was. It was one of our earliest ways of communicating.
When I started cooking professionally, my parents weren’t initially supportive. They’d experienced extreme hardships with their own restaurant, including losing everything in the Great Hanshin earthquake in 1995. They didn’t want that struggle for me. But eventually, my passion for cooking became clear to them, and now, they are my biggest cheerleaders.
As female Japanese chefs, my mom and I share a unique perspective on the challenges of our industry, and it’s brought us incredibly close. We’re always trading recipes and tricks, or texting each other pictures of a new dish we’re cooking for service — shrinking the distance across time zones. Food is truly what helped us make our relationship what it is today.
As I considered who my dream kitchen collaborator would be, I couldn’t think of anyone but my mom. She’s the chef I admire the most, and she’s the one who is in my kitchen with me in spirit every day. Now, she’ll get to be with me in person.
I’ll admit, I’m a little nervous, because she’s never seen me in action as my own chef: This will be the first time we’ve ever really cooked together in a professional kitchen. We’re both beyond excited.
We’ve been dreaming up the menu together for weeks, and it’ll feature a bit of nostalgia, recreating my favorite dishes from my mom’s repertoire — but with a twist because of the different ingredients available in the US — alongside the modern techniques we’ve both honed over the years, and some of my own signatures at Perry’s.
I always say that my style of Japanese comfort food, which I inherited from my mom, is meant to transport my guests to her kitchen. And for one night only, she’ll be transported here.
You can bet that we’ll be making dumplings together. And maybe this time, mine will be as perfect as hers.
As told to Lani Furbank, a writer based outside of Washington, D.C., whose work has been featured in The Washington Post, CNN, BuzzFeed, Eater, Edible, Michelin.com, Thrillist, and Time Out.
