Chef-Led Restaurant Group · Food & Hospitality
Morimoto
Three years, five cities, and the openings in between — covering a chef whose name travels.
2023 – present
The Challenge
Masaharu Morimoto is an Iron Chef with restaurants around the world, and the brand moves at the pace of its openings: a new room, a launch, a milestone, each in a different city and each needing to look like the others. What Morimoto's team wanted was someone who could travel with them and capture it properly — the events, the brand launches, and the essence of who Morimoto is — rather than a different local crew every time.
Our Approach
- —Traveled with the brand instead of waiting for it. Both Napa Valley rooms, Tokyo — including Morimoto's own XEX — Seattle, SoHo in New York, and Montclair in New Jersey. One crew across all of it, so the library holds together as a single body of work rather than a set of unrelated shoots.
- —Covered the moments that only happen once. The grand opening of MM by Morimoto, the opening of OEN Omakase, and Morimoto's 70th birthday party — an event that was picked up by Page Six and US Weekly. Openings and milestones are unrepeatable, which is the entire argument for having a crew who already knows the brand in the room.
- —Filmed in Japan for something longer. Alongside the event coverage we shot a documentary-style travel film with Morimoto in Japan — a different register from a launch reel, and the kind of material a chef-led brand can only make by being there.
Masaharu Morimoto needs little introduction — Iron Chef, and a restaurateur whose name is above rooms on several continents. Working with him and his team since 2023 has meant being wherever the brand is opening something, and being trusted enough to be in the room when it happens.
That has taken us to both Napa Valley locations, to Seattle, to SoHo in New York, to Montclair in New Jersey, and to Tokyo — where we filmed at XEX, Morimoto's own restaurant, and shot a documentary-style travel piece alongside the event work.
The set pieces are the ones you cannot re-shoot: the grand opening of MM by Morimoto, the opening of OEN Omakase, and Morimoto's 70th birthday party, which ran in Page Six and US Weekly. An opening happens once, and a crew that already understands the brand is the difference between covering it and documenting it.
It has been a genuine privilege to work with the chef and his team, and the brief has stayed the same throughout: capture the events, the launches, and the essence of who Morimoto is.
What We Did
Video Production
Event films and brand launch work across the group — openings, milestones and the rooms themselves. Because we travel with the brand rather than being briefed into a single day, the footage carries between properties: what is shot at an opening in one city is usable for the next launch, the next announcement, and the group's own channels. In Japan that extended to a documentary-style travel film, shot alongside the event coverage.
Photography
Photography for openings, events and the restaurants themselves, in Napa Valley, Tokyo, Seattle, SoHo and Montclair. A chef-led group is judged on how its rooms and its plates look, and on how consistent that looks from city to city — so the value of one crew across every property is a library that reads as one brand instead of five.
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