EVERY school holidays, a young Takayuki Kuramoto would sit transfixed, watching his uncle as he scooped eels from a tank and sliced them for the customers at his Nagano restaurant.
“I kept watching how he cut eel for hours and hours… I was fascinated. I always wanted to be a chef I think since that time.”
Taka didn’t waste any time in realising his dream. By age 15, while still at high school, he was working evenings in a Tokyo restaurant, and by 18, he was cooking in a Japanese sushi restaurant in the USA.
In 2004, his love of cooking and travel brought him to Australia, where Taka landed a job at Byron Bay’s popular O-Sushi restaurant.
He spent eight years there, and remembers it as a great time of his life, but like many chefs, he also dreamt of starting his own business.
That opportunity eventually came in 2010, when the newly opened Mullumbimby Farmers Market put a call out for food stalls. Taka had always loved the vibe of Byron’s markets and wanted to be a part of it, so he jumped at the chance. Along with fellow O-Sushi chef, Takashi Yaguchi, they began a stall selling sushi hand rolls filled with fresh local produce.
Five years down the track, their stall has become a market favourite. Morning shoppers line up week after week for their temaki (cone shaped hand rolls) based on organic brown rice and filled with fresh local goodies like tempura pumpkin and potato, fresh avocado, free range eggs, olives, mushrooms, tomatoes and haloumi.
Their success at the market in the first few years gave them the confidence to take it a step further and start their own restaurant, Doma, at Federal in 2012, which has been a huge success.
Despite the demands of the restaurant, Taka says he would never give up the market stall, which he considers the birthplace of Doma.
“We always talk about it; that’s the root, and we have to respect that spot where we started.”
Find the Doma stall at the Mullumbimby Farmers’ Market every Friday.
Story and photos by Kate O’Neill
