Zaiyu Hasegawa (長谷川在佑)

Life

Zaiyu Hasegawa (長谷川在佑) is the chef-owner of Den, the Jingumae (Shibuya, Tokyo) restaurant he opened in 2008 (originally in Jimbōchō; relocated to Jingumae in 2018). His culinary background combines classical Japanese training with an explicit framing — that Japanese fine dining should be joyful and warm rather than ceremonially formal.

Den earned its first Michelin star in the Tokyo Guide. By the 2014 guide it had reached two stars, where it has remained. The restaurant has held the Michelin Green Star (sustainability) and has appeared multiple times on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list.

Cuisine and Wine Program

Den’s cuisine is best characterized as playful inventive Japanese — an omakase format with signature dishes that intentionally subvert formal-kaiseki conventions:

• "Den Taki" — glutinous rice stuffed in chicken wings, deep-fried (a riff on KFC)
• "Field’s Landscape" — seasonal-vegetable salad with elaborate visual choreography
• "Dentucky Fried Chicken" and other tongue-in-cheek named dishes

The wine program has been central to the restaurant’s identity. Hasegawa has been an explicit champion of Japanese wine — the list reliably includes serious selections from Yamanashi, Hokkaido, Nagano, and Yamagata producers, alongside French and Italian classics. The pairing menu treats Japanese wine as the default for many courses rather than as a curiosity.

Den’s manager Emi Hasegawa (long-time partner of Chef Hasegawa) leads service and was awarded the Michelin Service Award in 2023.

Why He Matters

Zaiyu Hasegawa is one of the small number of Tokyo chefs who has taken Japanese wine seriously enough to make it the default pairing register at a 2-star Michelin restaurant. The choice has been institutionally consequential: international wine professionals, journalists, and sommeliers visiting Tokyo encounter Japanese wine first at Den, and that first encounter has shaped how the international fine-wine world frames Japanese wine.

His broader cultural prominence — through Michelin, World’s 50 Best, and his own media presence — has helped establish Japanese wine as fine-dining material in international perception in ways that producer-side promotion (Koshu of Japan, Marunouchi Japanese Wine Weeks) could not have achieved alone.

Details

• Restaurant: Den (傳), Jingumae, Shibuya, Tokyo
• Opened: 2008 (Jimbōchō original; Jingumae relocation 2018)
• Michelin: 2 stars (Tokyo Guide); Green Star
• World’s 50 Best: Multiple appearances
• Wife/Service partner: Emi Hasegawa (Michelin Service Award 2023)
• Wine program: Japanese wine as fine-dining default