What did Lily Collins order at Virgilio Martínez’s restaurant in Japan? A look at Maz’s proposal

Although it has been open to the public for more than half a year, arrival at Maz by Lily CollinsThe protagonist of the series “Emily in Paris”, drew attention to this new gastronomic proposal offered by Virgilio Martínez in Tokyo, Japan. Chef Santiago Fernández, in charge of the kitchen of this space, spoke with Provecho about how they have been conquering a new audience in Asia and what experience the famous British star had on his recent visit.

“We opened on July 1, 2022, since then the restaurant has been very well received by the Japanese. It was a challenge because we brought something that had never been seen before in Japan, a style of food that, although it is very consistent with their way of thinking, is very foreign to what they are used to seeing, but despite everything, the proposal has It has been very well accepted and we are very happy with great projections for the future”, explained the chef.

For the young chef, who worked with Virgilio in Lima as head of creative development at Central, one of the biggest challenges in Japan has been adapting to the culture, but also to its ingredients. “Although we have maintained our style and our concept and philosophy, what we do have to recognize is learning about the products and the way they eat, because in the end we are adapting.”

– What are the experiences offered in Maz?

We have two experiences. The first is Vertical World, which is our standard experience because it’s the one with seafood, meat, vegetables, mushrooms, everything. Our concept is to offer products of nine heights and nine ecosystems. Diners through our menu discover all the heights of the Peruvian ecosystem using Japanese products. And there is also the Vegetable Vertical World experience, which is the menu. Mundo Vertical Vegetal has surprised me because despite the fact that there are not many vegetarians in Japan, many people choose this menu and they choose it because at night they sometimes want to eat a little lighter.

– Who are Maz’s diners?

I would say that 85% of the diners are Japanese, then we would have 15% of the foreign public. And it’s very good, it seems to me that little by little the public will change because tourists will begin to learn more about the restaurant and in the end it will almost be a competition between who can book first. On the Peruvian side, we have received some visits, more or less it could be two tables per month of Peruvian clients. The ambassador and Peruvians who are businessmen and who arrive in Japan have come. There is something that usually happens, they come thinking that we are a Peruvian food restaurant and they are surprised when we offer them our experience. And in the end I think that this exceeds their expectations of what they were looking for. We are transmitting culture and knowledge about the ecosystems of Peru, but we are not specifically focusing on Peruvian flavors, nor on a Peruvian recipe book.

– Since when do you work with Virgilio Martínez?

I spent five years working at Central, I was creative head and Virgilio’s right-hand man. I think that Maz was a stage that I had to live to continue related to everything that surrounds the world of Mater.

– What does it mean to you to take Mater’s philosophy to another country?

It is a great responsibility because we all know that the name of Virgilio, Mater and Central are very well established in the world and people respect them, which raises customer expectations very high when, which also puts me in a situation of very high responsibility, but I think that for that we have been preparing and working on this project, curating it for three years. In the end, more than anything, it is the ability to adapt that I can have to be able to interpret the expectations that Japanese customers have and at the same time be faithful to our concept, with our philosophy and how we work at Central.

As we said at the beginning of this note, the actress Lily Collins, famous for being the protagonist of “Emily in Paris”, one of the most popular series on Netflix, generated a lot of interest in the proposal for this new restaurant. The fact that the star gave a lot of space to her visit on her Instagram account also took the chef by surprise.

– How does Lily Collins get to the restaurant?

Lily’s visit was a surprise to us and we learned that she came to Maz because her great friend, one of the directors of Givenchi, was the one who recommended the restaurant to her. Lily told us that her friend had recommended it to her as a must-see in Tokyo. It is important for us to feel supported by the artists’ union, everything is in sync with the type of food that we offer.

– What was the experience that the actress chose?

Lily came for the Vertical World menu, she, her husband and the two companions left very happy. I still find it incredible that she shared our proposal on her Instagram stories. It was something that I did not expect, I saw that she was taking photos, but I did not expect her to upload them. It feels good to have this support.

– In addition to this moment that was highly commented on networks. Recently, Virgilio and you were also on Japanese television.

Before we had appeared in documentaries and in several magazines, but never in a television program and we wanted our presence to be in a large space, like this live morning show, which has a reach of 10 million people. Virgilio came to Japan to be able to attend this program because of the importance it had, it was not just a program, it was an hour special about Virgilio and it was prepared a long time in advance.

– How much time was planned?

Almost 3 months. It seems silly that making a carapulcra and a leche de tigre takes so much time to plan, but here everything is very structured and everything has its times, so I remember that they came to see the restaurant, then we had a series of meetings where we chose what the program was going to deal with and what the dishes were going to be. They came to see the preparation live, all timed and finally we had to do it again to verify that this information was true. I was surprised because, although I have participated thanks to Virgilio in different television programs, I had never seen them take so much time planning. But everything went very well.

– How was the choice of dishes that you prepared live?

They told us that we had to choose Peruvian dishes that were easy to prepare in less than an hour, but that the supplies could be found in supermarkets. We chose the carapulcra and a kind of Leche de Tigre, for which we made a recipe that has the closest flavors to the traditional and I can assure you that they were very, very close flavors. I think the Japanese are going to be able to have a pretty close version of both dishes.

– What’s next for Maz?

We are going to continue consolidating our proposal, I think we are already at a point where the knowledge we have reached allows us to play a little more with the preparations, be more creative and continue to grow. Also, this year we were included in the Michelin guide and we are waiting for the score. But overall, we want to make this concept as solid as possible and have a very strong thread that makes sense.