Heartbreaking story behind first woman to receive Michelin star for sushi

A Michelin star is perhaps the most prestigious recognition of culinary excellence available to chefs.

While Gordon Ramsay has earned 17 of them across his career and maintains eight, even getting one star is huge cause for celebration and marks out a chef as one of the living greats.

Three months before his death, sushi chef Shunei Kimura earned his first. He had been working in sushi restaurants for over 30 years by the time he opened his own restaurant at 63, Sushi Shunei.

Chizuko and Shunei Kimura (©11h45)

The Paris-based restaurant opened on 9 June 2021 and, just nine months later, Sushi Shunei was awarded its first Michelin star in the 2022 Michelin Guide.

17 years earlier, Shunei Kimura met his wife Chizuko. They were married just a year after they first met, and until the pandemic Chizuko had been working as a tour guide. When that work was shuttered by COVID, she got involved with the plans to launch Sushi Shunei.

"He never said to me, 'Learn how to make sushi,'" Chizuko Kimura told Business Insider. "But he showed me everything, and I observed everything. I learned to prepare the fish, to cook the rice, to follow every detail."

The restaurant’s first year went incredibly well, with the Michelin star being a realisation of Shunei’s long decades of dedication to his craft.

"He ended up fulfilling his two dreams: to open an edomae sushi restaurant under his name in Paris, and to earn a Michelin star," said Chizuko.

Tragically, just three months later, Shunei lost his battle with cancer that had begun in 2015. He bequeathed the restaurant to his wife, with his last wish being for her to continue his legacy at Sushi Shunei.

"He said to me, 'Could you keep this restaurant forever?'" she said. "I have to continue. It's my duty."

Armed with many years of tutelage under her husband, Chizuko set about leading the restaurant.

Sushi Shunei (©11h45)

"Normally, it takes many years to become a sushi chef, but I had to do it because Shunei couldn't use his hands sometimes," she explained. "Every day by his side was a learning experience. Even while sick, he never stopped teaching."

Three years on, and Chizuko Kimura has become the first woman to receive a Michelin star for sushi. Sushi Shunei had lost its Michelin star in 2023, spurring Chizuko to battle to regain it.

"It was a shock. I felt as if I had lost Shunei a second time," Kimura said of the lost star. "I thought there might be no chance of getting the star back, but I didn't give up.

"I turned that pain into obsession. I had to get it back. Not for me — for him."

She strengthened her team with sushi chef Takeshi Morooka, and took up training at Michelin-starred restaurants in Japan to further refine her skills.

"Every morning, I got up to work. I continued day after day, without pause, I never stopped," she said. "I told myself, 'I must give it my all. I must go all the way.' There was no alternative."

After years of working extremely hard, her dedication paid off: in the 2025 Michelin Guide, the star had been restored beside Sushi Shunei, and Chizuko had made history as the first female sushi chef to earn a Michelin star.

Chizuko Kimura studied under Michelin-starred chefs in Japan (©11h45)

"I thought of him, of Shunei," she said. "I felt, deep inside, that I had not betrayed his memory. For me, this is not a new star — it's Shunei's star that I managed to win back. I only continued what we had started together."

She added: "Talent has no gender — only work and courage. Maybe it seemed unthinkable that at age 50, I would begin a career as a sushi chef without ever having cooked before. But what Shunei passed on to me is faith in work and in determination."