AXIS Forum "Return to Origin Vol. 5" inviting Jerome Waag (Chef and Artist｜The Blind Donkey) Online Event Archive is Now Available

The video of the online event held on Friday, September 10, 2021 is now available from the link below.

Description of the Online Event

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed our world dramatically. Accepting changes and building a new future may require a return to origin, where we may examine our very bedrock. With this in mind, AXIS Forum is inviting speakers that are active in various fields.

For this installment, we have invited Jerome Waag, the owner and chef of The Blind Donkey restaurant in Kanda, Tokyo, who is also an artist.

The Blind Donkey is known for making efficient use of the most of ingredients produced by sustainable farmers around Japan in its simple cooking. "Farmers connect our lives to nature. Without them, neither nature nor humans would survive," he says. At the base of his idea lays the philosophy of Alice Waters' Chez Panisse (Berkeley, California), a pioneering organic restaurant where he worked as head chef for 25 years. Being an artist as well, he believes that food is culture. He considers food as not only something to cook, but also a tool to move society. "Soil nurtures food, food nurtures people, and people form society."

He moved to Japan in 2016, where the importance of organic food had not yet been well-entrenched compared with the Western countries, and opened The Blind Donkey in 2017, aiming for a "100% Organic Japan." While expanding his network with like-minded farmers, he is making steady progress towards accomplishing this time-consuming and challenging mission.


In this AXIS Forum, we interviewed Jerome Waag, who moved to Japan five years ago and has lived in an old house in Kamiyama Town, Tokushima Prefecture since 2020, about his activities beyond the framework of a restaurant, the relationship between humans and nature, and the future of food and agriculture.