Shuko Oda

Head chef, Koya Bar

My father worked in banking and we moved country every three or four years. I was born and lived my first few years in London, but can’t remember much. From London we moved “back” to Tokyo, then to LA, then back to Tokyo, then London again.

Holidays whenever I lived in Tokyo were often [120km away] in Karuizawa, where in summer people go to escape Tokyo life and cool down in the mountain air. I remember fishing in the river with my grandfather and catching ayu and barbecuing it with salt – amazing. But I also remember throwing up a purin – egg pudding – there. I haven’t been able to eat wobbly sweet eggy things since.

Holidays really stand out more once we moved to LA, when I was nine. My expectation had been based on my love of Little House On The Prairie and so I was surprised by LA. But each summer I was sent to Gold Arrow activity camps and I shot arrows and guns, and rode horses. It was there that I had my first peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I’d seen lots of people eat them at school and thought the idea disgusting. But we were out riding all day along the mountains and by lunch I was very hungry. I opened my lunchbox and it contained just a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I was devastated but had to eat it. And I absolutely adored it.

I remember one family holiday in San Francisco when we went to a seafood restaurant and we were sat next to this very loved-up couple eating, with their hands, oven-baked crabs covered in pepper. The whole scene just seemed so romantic and sexy that it really left an impression on me.

We also gathered with relatives once for a holiday in Thailand. I remember Grandfather catching some kind of bream, then we landed the boat on an island and asked if a hotel’s cook would prepare sashimi with it for us. But he didn’t know how to cut, so we were allowed in the kitchen. I remember it being disgusting, with filthy surfaces and three cats eating things. It was a real culture shock to me at 10, but I felt proud of how Grandmother cleaned up and then made our meal.

The first holidays I remember once living back in London, around 15 or 16, were travelling around those very pretty and very English villages in the Cotswolds. The cream teas and the B&B roasts. More recently I’ve been to the Lake District – me for L’Enclume and my husband for the hiking – but back then it was Cotswolds, Cotswolds, Cotswolds, because visitors from Japan want to be shown there. Japanese people think the Cotswolds are heaven.

I think the most amazing meal I’ve ever had on holiday was a really simple but excellent tomato and basil spaghetti with a glass of wine in Milan. My husband, a menswear designer, was there working so I thought I’d tag along. My uncle and aunt knew Milan and I asked for a recommendation. They said I must try the pomodoro at a particular restaurant I’ve forgotten the name of, sadly. But I went there and it was beautiful and I felt very happy.

Every year nowadays I visit Japan for a while. It’s usually staying with my parents and it’s not really a holiday because I feel I have to see so many people and it’s tiring translating for my husband, who’s English. He loves it there, it’s a holiday for him, but I come back exhausted. The good thing though is that people cook for me there and I don’t have to pack miso soup and kombu seaweed and rice to take with me. I’ve been to places where I haven’t had Japanese food with me and my stomach reacts badly after only a few days, saying, “I can’t take all this olive oil any more!”