On Friday, May 27, 1921 (Taisho 10), Nobuo Murakami, fondly known as the “Musch Murakami” French chef, was born in Matsueda-machi, Kanda Ward, Tokyo. This place is present Kanda Iwamoto-cho, Chiyoda Ward. Nobuo Murakami’s father, Nobutaro Murakami, and his mother, Iyo, ran a restaurant called Banzaitei. In 1933 (Showa 8), he graduated from Third Nippori Elementary School and worked at a Brazilian coffee shop in Asakusa. In 1939 (Showa 14), he was hired as an apprentice at the Imperial Hotel, and the following year became a regular employee. During the Pacific War, he went to the Chinese front as an army soldier, and after the war, he was detained in Siberia.
After being discharged from military service, he returned to the Imperial Hotel, visited the Hotel Ritz in Paris for training in 1957 (Showa 32), returned to Japan the following year, and began working as a regular instructor at NHK ‘Today’s dishes’ from 1960 (Showa 35). Then, in 1969, he became the 11th head chef of Imperial Hotel (Showa 44). In 1982, he became a managing director of Imperial Hotel (Showa 57) and was promoted to a managing director in 1990 (Heisei 2). In 1994, he was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon from the Japanese government. On August 2, 2005, he died of heart failure at his home in Koganehara, Matsudo City, Chiba Prefecture. He was 84 years old.
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