🇯🇵 Japan · Japanese cuisine · b. 1980
The Wagyumafia co-founder who turned A5 Kobe beef into a global cult — eleven members-only restaurants from Tokyo to Las Vegas.
Hisato Hamada is a Japanese chef, restaurateur and co-founder, with Takafumi Horie, of the Wagyumafia restaurant group — a network of small, members-only restaurants in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Las Vegas, Macau, Bangkok, Phnom Penh and Marrakech, each devoted to a single subject: the highest grades of Japanese wagyu beef and especially Kobe beef from Hyōgo Prefecture. Wagyumafia is the most internationally visible Japanese wagyu specialist of the 2010s and 2020s, and Hamada — who travels constantly to host service at each outpost — is its public face.
Hamada's path into the kitchen was unconventional. Born in Kobe in 1980, he originally trained as a journalist and producer, and through his twenties worked for media agencies in Tokyo with a particular focus on motorsport (he was for a period the manager of the Japanese racing driver Kamui Kobayashi). In 2014 he met the entrepreneur Takafumi Horie — the founder of Livedoor and one of the most controversial business figures of the Japanese 2000s — and the two began a casual side project, hosting small Kobe-beef dinners at a private apartment in Tokyo's Nishi-Azabu neighbourhood. They incorporated the project as Wagyumafia in 2016 and opened their first dedicated address, the eight-seat Wagyumafia Progress, that year. The original Tokyo flagship, Mafia Yakiniku, followed in 2017, and the first overseas Wagyumafia opened in Hong Kong's Sheung Wan in 2018.
The Wagyumafia format is unusual: each restaurant is a members-only counter (typically eight to fourteen seats) where Hamada — or one of his small group of trained chefs — personally butchers an entire A5 Kobe loin in front of guests before serving a tasting menu organised by cut, fat ratio and breed (Tajima-gyu, Matsusaka-gyu, Ōmi-gyu). The group's signature dishes — the chateaubriand katsu sandwich, the wagyu-fat hand-cut soba, the kobe-rib ramen — have become some of the most-photographed dishes in the global Instagram restaurant economy. The group operates eleven locations as of 2026 and has been credited (and criticised) for almost single-handedly driving the global premium-wagyu trade from a domestic Japanese market into a luxury export sector. Hamada has been a regular speaker at the World's 50 Best Chef's Forum and was named one of Eater's '20 Chefs Shaping Asia' in 2022.
One cow, one menu. Each Wagyumafia service is built around a single, fully traceable carcass from a named Tajima-gyu or Matsusaka-gyu farm, butchered live at the counter and served cut by cut over twelve to fifteen courses. Hamada's argument is that wagyu — and specifically the A5 grade of pure-bred Tajima cattle from Hyōgo Prefecture, the only beef that may legally be called Kobe — is best understood as a single ingredient with a hundred personalities, and that the chef's job is to translate that single carcass into a complete meal.
The members-only Tokyo flagship; an eight-seat counter where Hamada butchers a whole A5 Kobe loin per service.
The group's more accessible Tokyo yakiniku restaurant, opened 2017.
The first overseas Wagyumafia, opened 2018.
Opened 2021; the group's first U.S. restaurant.
Opened 2019; the group's first Southeast Asian outpost.
“I am not a chef. I am a translator for a single Japanese cow.”
— South China Morning Post profile (2019)
“If you have not seen the cow's name on the wall, you have not eaten Kobe beef.”
— Wagyumafia: The Cult of the Cow (2023), introduction
Begins his career as a media producer and journalist in Tokyo.
Manages the Japanese racing driver Kamui Kobayashi during his Formula 1 years at Sauber.
Meets the Livedoor founder Takafumi Horie; the two begin hosting private Kobe-beef dinners in Nishi-Azabu.
Co-founds Wagyumafia with Horie; opens the eight-seat Wagyumafia Progress in Tokyo.
Opens Mafia Yakiniku in Nishi-Azabu — the group's first full restaurant.
Opens Wagyumafia Hong Kong in Sheung Wan — the first overseas outpost.
Opens Wagyumafia Singapore on Ann Siang Hill.
Opens Wagyumafia Las Vegas at Resorts World — the first U.S. restaurant.
Named one of Eater's '20 Chefs Shaping Asia.'
Publishes Wagyumafia: The Cult of the Cow with Phaidon.
Wagyumafia was co-founded in 2016 by Hamada and the Japanese entrepreneur Takafumi Horie — the founder of the internet portal Livedoor and one of the most prominent (and at times most controversial) business figures of the Japanese 2000s. Horie is the principal financial backer and public-facing co-owner; Hamada is the chef-patron and operational lead.
The chateaubriand katsu sandwich is Wagyumafia's most-photographed dish: a single thick slice of A5 Kobe tenderloin (chateaubriand cut), breaded in panko, deep-fried for ninety seconds, and served between two crustless slices of Japanese milk bread (shokupan) brushed with a sweet tonkatsu glaze. The group reports selling more than 20,000 of them across all locations annually.
No. While Kobe beef (the A5 Tajima-gyu of Hyōgo Prefecture) is the group's principal product and the inspiration for its founding, the menu also features other premium Japanese wagyu brands including Matsusaka-gyu (Mie), Ōmi-gyu (Shiga) and Hida-gyu (Gifu). Each service is built around a single named carcass from a single named farm.
Most are members-only or by introduction. The flagship Cutting Room in Tokyo and several overseas counters operate on a paid-membership model; the more casual Mafia Yakiniku and several international restaurants accept walk-in reservations subject to availability. The membership system was designed both to control demand and to allow the group to commit to whole-carcass sourcing.
As of 2026 the group operates eleven restaurants across eight countries: Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, the United States, Macau, Thailand, Cambodia and Morocco. New openings have been announced in 2026 for Dubai and London.
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