‘If sake making stops, everything stops’: US$180 Wagyu beef sandwich pioneer on his Wagyumafia empire’s new Hong Kong sake-and-snacks bar
- Hisato Hamada made his name selling US$180 Wagyu beef sandwiches in Tokyo, before bringing his Wagyumafia brand to Hong Kong
- He planned to continue elevating beef, but when he saw how Covid-19 lockdowns harmed Japan’s sake producers he pivoted to promoting the drink – and togetherness
“Everybody said I was crazy,” says Hisato Hamada, reflecting on the time he decided to start selling Kobe beef Chateaubriand cutlet sandwiches for the equivalent of almost US$200 a pop in Tokyo, in March 2017.
It was his first restaurant venture after launching members-only The Wagyumafia Progressive Kaiseki restaurant in the Japanese capital in 2016, which in turn came on the back of a series of Wagyu-related pop-ups.
For a time, it looked as though the naysayers might have been right, because despite the popularity of the kaiseki restaurant, the tiny, 15-square-metre (160 sq ft) sandwich shop in Tokyo’s Meguro ward stayed empty for almost a year.
“We had almost no customers at all,” Hamada recalls. The concept of seriously pricey Wagyu in a street food context just didn’t compute with the Japanese public.
Like many trailblazers before him, Hamada stayed stubborn, and hopeful.