Bartender Michito Kaneko talks the award-winning walk
The World Class Global Bartender of the Year 2015, who was in Hong Kong recently for a guest stint at Zuma, in Central, reveals how he found the career he loves – after a few false starts
Describe your childhood. “My parents are ceramic artists. They don’t just make plates but also wall art. I grew up on a mountainside in Nara, Japan, where they have a studio. They didn’t expect me to go into ceramics; they said I should do what I like. But the environment I grew up in forced me to think about art, creativity. I like drawing and thought about going to art school. I applied, but didn’t pass the exam. These days, when I think about new drinks, I like to draw them.
“At 18, I decided to go to culinary school because I like cooking. I went to the only culinary school in Nara. Then I went to work in a restaurant but quit soon after because it was much harder work than I expected; cooking for myself was not the same as cooking in a restaurant, and there is a hierarchy in the kitchen I found hard to accept. After that I did construction work for two years.”
How did you get into bartending? “A former schoolmate had a bar and every day after work I worked there part time. That’s where I fell in love with cocktails – both drinking and making them. Then I heard about a famous bartender in Nara and I went to take a look. The bar is classic looking, the staff dress well, wearing neckties, and their hair is nicely styled. The cocktails were so good that I quit my construction job, bought nice clothes, dyed my hair – it was blond – back to black and politely approached the boss with a bow and asked if I could get a job at the bar.”
