The Prime Minister's Chef

Prime Minister Ato Ichiro and political adviser Oguchi Junzo are facing each other in a room at the rear of a high-end Japanese-style restaurant. He is supposed to entertain Oguchi with food that uses seasonal ingredients of the highest quality, but Oguchi has not touched the food at all. While the atmosphere grows strained, a waitress serves Oguchi some food. And this food transforms the mood of the meeting. Ato’s private secretary Koga Seiji, who was present, asks the restaurant’s head chef what was served, but he does not remember the food. Then Koga suddenly recalls the movements of the waitress in the kitchen and immediately sends people in search of her. This waitress is Ichiki Kurumi, who was made a chef at Grande Maison Paris at the age of 25. The next morning, Kurumi is reading recipes at a second-hand bookstore as always when she receives a phone call to come to the Prime Minister’s residence. She visits the residence under tight security and is asked about what happened yesterday at the restaurant. She is also told of the plan to revive the “Prime Minister’s residence chef” as part of a policy to open up the residence – the first appointment since the time of Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru close to 70 years ago – and sounded out about taking on the job. Although Kurumi rejects the offer, she is later forced to accept it. However, the chefs of the residence fiercely protest this sudden development. The culinary world is an all-male society, much less to say the traditional Prime Minister’s residence. The head chef Kiyosawa Haruki treats Kurumi with undisguised hostility and his underlings clash with her repeatedly as she starts to contribute to Japanese politics and diplomacy.