DIRECTED & PRODUCED by JUSTIN AMBROSINO
Do you remember the first time you tried a foreign dish? How old were you? Did you like it or hate it? Or discover something new about yourself? Maybe the older you became the more your preferred your own cuisine or because of that first bite, you’re on a life-long adventure to try every dish in the world.
With OMAKASE FOR KIDS, the idea was to spark that curiosity in a child. To find diverse children from all over the world who never had authentic Japanese food and give them their first taste of what lies far across the ocean. To see how they react and ultimately discover how it changes them. It may be too soon to tell but maybe many years later they will have this documentary to help remember their first Japanese ‘omakase’ and think about how it changed them.
When it was possible, we thought it was important that the children met for the very first time during the lunch, so the story is not only about the food but also about each of them, coming from diverse backgrounds, and this new meal becomes a bridge that brings them together.
Each dish was an ambassador to a nation and every single ingredient might turn a child off for many years. With that kind of responsibility, you can see a lot of love was put into every dish. Working with critically acclaimed restaurants owned and operated by Japanese immigrants, such as Tempura Matsui (NY), Yoshi (Singapore) or Yashima (Barcelona), or with world-renowned chefs, such as Nobuaki Fushiki (Japan) or Iwao Komiyama '(Argentina), we made sure to give the children a personal menu prepared by the very best.
In the end, I hope that audiences can watch the docu-series and remember their first foreign meal, think about how their tastes have changed, invite their loved ones to try something new... continuing to make food a bridge that brings us together.
OMAKASE FOR KIDS was filmed with a RED & Sony A7s in New York (USA), Burgundy (France), Milano (Italy), Barcelona (Spain), Singapore (Malay) and Buenos Aires (Argentina). It is executive produced by MAMJP.org, in association with Honest Productions, LaPiscina and Rockstagvid.
