About Fire
Online video lessons for professional chefs, on how chefs at top restaurants decide
Fire is an online video course for professional chefs. Chefs at top restaurants, including two-Michelin-star kitchens, explain in their own kitchens why they make each decision. It isn’t recipes or step-by-step technique. It’s the judgment behind them: which ingredients to use and which to refuse, how a dish is built, how a team is run. Fire is run by Fire Inc. in Osaka, Japan, and costs $70 a month.
Three restaurants with two Michelin stars, and Central, named No.1 in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2023. Each chef teaches from their own kitchen.
Why no wasabi and no soy sauce, in Tokyo
The only sister restaurant of Lima’s Central outside Peru. In a kitchen that earned two Michelin stars within eighteen months of opening, the chef explains what he chooses to use, and what he refuses to.
Taught by: Santiago Fernández (Former chef)
“Nothing like this has existed before, and I found it genuinely exciting. For cooks, this is a project that really means something.”
From field to plate, every call is theirs
Three childhood friends run this restaurant in a townhouse more than 150 years old, with produce from their own farm served on Suzu and Kutani ware. They talk through every decision, from the field to the plate.
Taught by: Tatsuro Ume (Owner-chef)
“We talked about how we think and how we create our food today: what matters more than technique, and what young cooks should be doing. It’s an effort to capture on film the thinking and instinct beneath the technique, and pass it on to the next generation of cooks.”
Every altitude’s ecosystem, on one plate
Lima, Peru. A kitchen that turns ecosystems into food, from the sea to the high Andes, altitude by altitude. Researching ingredients with Mater Iniciativa, Central was named No.1 at The World’s 50 Best Restaurants in 2023. MAZ in Tokyo is its only sister restaurant outside Peru.
Taught by: Virgilio Martínez (Chef)
“The most important thing is to know the why. Why you’re doing it, why you’re cooking. That’s what I talk about.”
Even first-grade wild kombu isn’t enough
Self-taught over thirty years, he runs the kitchen on his own. Dashi, sourcing, tableware: when an ingredient falls short of the ideal, what does he choose, and what does he let go? He walks through it in the order he decides.
Taught by: Toshihiko Furuta (Owner-chef)
“This service gets to the heart of things. But I think most people will take a while to understand how important it is.”
Fire is about the “why” behind the steps. The judgment of top restaurants has only ever reached the few people standing next to the chef. On Fire, the chef stops mid-task and puts the reason into words.
| Way to learn | What you get | The reasons behind decisions |
|---|---|---|
| Working at a top restaurant | The real thing, all of it | Few chances to ask; much is learned by watching. Few people get in |
| A short stage | How the kitchen moves | Too short to hear the reasons behind most decisions |
| Cookbooks and recipes | The finished dish and the steps | The reasons are rarely written down |
| Online videos and social media | Technique and plating, as shown | Fragmented; it’s hard to tell what each decision is for |
| Fire | How the participating restaurants think and set their standards | The chef explains the reason, in their own kitchen |
Fire doesn’t replace the hours you spend building skill with your hands. What it removes is the time spent learning only by watching. Each lesson ends with one question you can test in your own kitchen.
How chefs at top restaurants decide what their food and their restaurant should be: the judgment that comes before the recipe, and the reasons behind it.
At MAZ, why excellent Japanese ingredients like shiso and wasabi are left out. At Hanagaki, how tableware is chosen and how a “good” ingredient is judged. At Respiración, where a new dish starts and how the chef decides the flavor is right. Each lesson ends with one question to test in your own kitchen.
Yes, from two-Michelin-star chefs. The participating restaurants are MAZ (Tokyo), Hanagaki (Nara) and Respiración (Kanazawa), all with two Michelin stars, and Central (Lima, Peru), No.1 in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2023. There are no lessons from three-star restaurants at the moment.
Fire’s founder, Etsu Kurokawa, spent four years at HAJIME, a three-Michelin-star restaurant in Osaka, and builds the questions put to each chef from that experience.
Professional cooks and chefs working in restaurants: people who want to work at starred or top restaurants, cooks who want to raise the level of their work, and chefs who lead a kitchen or a team.
Fire doesn’t cover home-cooking recipes or basics such as knife skills.
$70 a month gives you lessons from every participating restaurant, daily restaurant news from around the world, and the members’ community (the news and the community are currently in Japanese).
MAZ or Respiración can also be bought on its own for $55, a one-time purchase that’s yours to keep.
No. Each restaurant’s page shows the opening of its lessons, so you can see what they’re like.
On your phone or computer. Signing up takes your name, your email and payment. Once you’ve paid, we show you how to start watching.
The MAZ (Tokyo) and Central (Lima) lessons are taught in English. The Hanagaki (Nara) and Respiración (Kanazawa) lessons are in Japanese, and their English version hasn’t been released yet. The members’ community and the daily news are currently in Japanese.
Yes, any time, from the members’ page. You can keep watching until the end of the period you’ve paid for.
Fire Inc., founded in September 2025 in Osaka, Japan. Its founder, Etsu Kurokawa, spent four years in the kitchen and the dining room at HAJIME, a three-Michelin-star restaurant in Osaka, then worked in restaurants in New York before starting Fire.
Part of the revenue goes back to the restaurants that teach, so that teaching makes the restaurant stronger too.
Video lessons for professional chefs · $70 a month