Koumei Nakamura
Komei Nakamura (中村孝明
Nakamura Kōmei, born
1947 in
Shimabara City,
Nagasaki Prefecture), is a
celebrity chef. Most famous for being the second
Japanese Iron Chef on the show,
Iron Chef, he has worked at numerous restaurants such as the
Oriental Hotel in
Osaka,
Nadaman in the
Hotel New Otani, and the
Nadaman Singapore in the
Shangri La Hotel. He later became the manager of
Nadaman in the
Hotel New Otani. He now has his own restaurant in
Tokyo,
Komei Ariake. On
Iron Chef he wears a purple outfit trimed with gold in the Japanese style.
In the fall of 1995, Nakamura's predecessor,
Rokusaburo Michiba, had fought in the first overtime battle in Kitchen Stadium, a grueling process that led to his retirement at the 1996
Mr. Iron Chef tournament. Michiba's last battle was against fellow Iron Chef
Chen Kenichi, and for two months, Kitchen Stadium had only two Iron Chefs while Michiba was tasked to find a successor. During this time, Michiba had repeatedly requested Nakamura to be his successor, but Nakamura repeatedly declined due to two main factors: the first was that, at that time, Michiba's
fusion-style Japanese dishes had promoted the stigma among the traditionalist chefs' circle that
Iron Chef was to be avoided; the second was that, in stark contrast to Chen or
Hiroyuki Sakai, who owned their own restaurants, Nakamura was a hired chef, and thus had more riding on the line with each battle. Nakamura was ultimately convinced by an old high-school friend (who he refers to as his older brother) to become an Iron Chef after taking note of the fact that the Iron Chef Japanese was a one-of-a-kind position.
Nakamura is, in stark contrast to Michiba before him and
Masaharu Morimoto after, considered to be more of a traditional Japanese chef that was forced to improvise due to unusual (for traditional Japanese cuisine) secret ingredients that tended to favor the challenger. He also appeared to be the most concerned about winning and losing - a fact that may have led him to his 24-11-1 record (with one no-contest), the lowest winning percentage of any Iron Chef. Not surprisingly, his decisions on the dishes he made were often influenced by his bosses at Nadaman, perhaps to maintain a good corporate image (although the restaurant itself ceased to care about Nakamura's performance as an Iron Chef after a year).
During his tenure as an Iron Chef, Nakamura was always compared to Michiba, who was regarded as the top Iron Chef during his tenure. It was said that Nakamura was even ostracized by his family whenever he lost, which was why Nakamura had acquired a pet
Shiba dog named "Chef" one year into his tenure. Curiously, despite a sub-par overall performance as an Iron Chef, Nakamura has won the majority of battles against returning challengers (going 3-1-1) and other Iron Chefs (going 2-1).
