CHEF NOBU MATSUHISA

Bio

Cofounder and co-owner, Nobu

Born in Champagne, the scion of a 500-yearold Champagne family—custodians of a Champagne house for the last two centuries—and raised a couple of miles from the estate, you could say Roland-Billecart’s role was destiny. “It all feels like part of a natural ecosystem,” he says, laughing. “Champagne has always been an integral part of my life and family.”

All the same, he left at 20 for the UK, to improve his English—“I took 17 years to learn the language, and in between, finished my university degree”—becoming a chartered accountant and working in the city, before returning to France in 2013 to join the family supervisory board.

So how does it feel to now run the company (he became CEO in 2018)? “The approach to time is very different [from the city],” he says. “We do one cycle of growing grapes and harvesting a year.” To

Working in finance during the 2008 global financial crisis prepared Roland-Billecart for the challenges that the pandemic brought soon after he took the helm. “I was at RBS, and I had to restructure our entire businesses,” he says. “That experience enables you to put a problem in a broad universe and bring solutions.” And he credits his great-uncle, who lived through two world wars, for reminding him of the importance of community and helping each other. “We got stronger during Covid. Thankfully, we had no casualties. And we sold the same number of bottles in 2020 as in 2019.”

The next big launch is an IT system for supply-chain transparency (each bottle will have a unique ID so customers can access information about its content). Travel is still a passion, but it now means more to him to stay grounded—in a literal sense, when it comes to feeling connected to the vineyard.

Ultimately, he sees his role as helping to create moments for people. “I’m happy when people say to me, ‘We were a bit down—then we opened the Champagne, and it made the day right.’ ”

Chef Nobu, as he’s now known, blends the culinary sensibilities of his native Japan with techniques he learned in Peru.

When Nobuyuki “Nobu” Matsuhisa moved from Saitama in Japan to Tokyo to work as a dishwasher, then as an apprentice chef, it’s unlikely he imagined he would eventually own a culinary empire. Or be business partners with Hollywood legend Robert De Niro. Showing enough talent to be trained as a sushi master, he was later persuaded to move to Lima, where he developed a knack for creating traditional Japanese dishes with Peruvian ingredients.

Chef Nobu, as he’s now widely known, first came across De Niro in his eponymous celebrity-haunt restaurant Matsuhisa in Los Angeles in 1987. The actor—who had taken a liking to the black cod with miso and the Japanese sake Hokusetsu on offer at Matsuhisa—suggested to Nobu that his native New York was missing exactly this kind of fare.

De Niro even talked Nobu into heading east and showed him a potential restaurant space—a dilapidated property in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood—but the partnership wouldn’t come to fruition for four more years. It was De Niro’s patience during that period that persuaded Chef Nobu to start their partnership—one that also included restaurateur Drew Nieporent and film producer Meir Teper.

Now, Nobu’s restaurant portfolio spans from California to Saudi Arabia and includes plans to open five more hotels this year, in addition to the existing 16. (The group entered the hotel business in 2013 with the opening of its 182-room Nobu Hotel Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.)

And yet, Chef Nobu still finds time to enjoy a long-standing partnership with VistaJet, whose passengers since last year have been enjoying a dish carefully formulated to take in the effects of elevation, lower humidity, and increased noise and movement on tastebuds and senses: Nobu steamed salmon dry miso.

“When creating this dish, I wanted to use healthy ingredients and tastes that would be unique and familiar to the palate,” he says. “Salmon is a very healthy and popular fish. Dry miso is one of my signature seasonings and is used in several of our dishes. It adds texture, saltiness and a savory umami flavor that enhances the taste of the steamed salmon. As a frequent flier, I thought about what I would enjoy eating and what would be suitable to serve in this space.”

Chef Nobu’s approach to cuisine mirrors his broader approach to life—and to commercial success. “If the guest is happy and they keep coming back,” he told Robb Report during an interview last year, “then business success comes automatically.”