India, Nov. 7 -- Masaharu Morimoto is the most famous Japanese chef in Mumbai. His fame derives from the success of Wasabi, the Japanese restaurant he opened at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai two decades ago. Wasabi is small (around 40 covers), hideously expensive, where the city's wealthy elite go for a celebration, and it is Mumbai's most exclusive restaurant. I spoke to Morimoto at Wasabi last weekend. We talked about how risky the Mumbai venture seemed when it opened. Would people like Japanese food? Would they pay such high prices? Would they find Indian chefs who could assist the two chefs Morimoto had sent over? Many years later, Morimoto was able to smile about the early doubts. Not only has Wasabi been a huge success, but its menu has been imitated by scores of restaurants all over India. Talking to Morimoto, I was reminded that though Wasabi may have been the most influential Japanese restaurant in India it was not the first. As Meher Mirza tells us in her excellent Sea, Salt and Spice, a history of Mumbai through its food, that Mumbai favourite, the sizzler, has Japanese origins. I have a faint memory of a mildly Japanese-influenced restaurant near Mumbai's Excelsior cinema. Mirza reminds us that it was owned by Firoz Erani who had a Japanese wife called Tachiko. This connection gave Erani an insight into Japanese food traditions. His family owned a steel company and he developed a steel plate that could be used for teppanyaki. He used the plate to introduce teppanyaki to Mumbai and later developed the concept to offer all kinds of sizzling dishes. The Erani family also started Touche Sizzlers on Warden Road. And a former manager of Touche started the massively successful Kobe Sizzlers. The reference to Kobe suggested Japanese food, but the menu was eclectic and hardly anyone in Mumbai today recognises that the city's beloved sizzlers are in direct descent from teppanyaki. The first totally authentic Japanese restaurant in India opened in the late 1980s at the Ashoka hotel in Delhi. Rajiv Gandhi was eager to re-establish trade links with Japan and realised that businessmen were reluctant to go to India because they missed their food. He told the government-owned ITDC to collaborate with the Japanese to open a restaurant at the Ashoka in Delhi. The restaurant was called Tokyo, had a Japanese chef, used ingredients imported from Japan and, because Indians were not its primary guests, made totally authentic food. It soon became my favourite restaurant in Delhi. Tokyo had no sushi on the menu and as Indian guests began frequenting it, they got used to real Japanese food. Changes of government meant that ITDC went through many upheavals and lost most of its best people. Sadly Tokyo did not survive thoseupheavals. There was no good Japanese restaurant in India for a while until Nikko, a company owned by Japan Airlines, began managing the Metropolitan Hotel in Delhi. Nikko opened an outstanding Japanese restaurant, Sakura and served real Japanese food. Many of the ingredients it required (Kobe beef, for instance) were not available in India (this was before the anti-beef frenzy began) but Sakura procured them anyway. It was believed - but never confirmed - that Japan airlines crew brought them into India in their baggage. The Mumbai equivalent of Sakura was Wasabi, though the styles of cooking were different. Wasabi was the brainchild of Raymond Bickson, who ran the Taj in that era. Bickson wanted to open Nobu but was stymied by the eponymous chef's view that he wanted a 100-cover restaurant. He turned instead to Morimoto, who had been executive chef at the first Nobu, and had helped perfect the menu's iconic dishes including Black Cod in Miso. At that stage, Morimoto had only one restaurant of his own and was not sure that Indians would like Japanese food, so the venture was a gamble for both Bickson and Morimoto. As we now know, it worked brilliantly. The Taj has a history of introducing new cuisines to India and watching as bastardised versions take off at the lower end of the market. It happened with Sichuan food and then with Japanese food, where numerous Wasabi imitators have sprung up. But I am sure that Wasabi itself will never compromise on the food. In the heyday of the Ashoka's Tokyo, the restaurant manager became committed to the cuisine, developed a working knowledge of kitchen Japanese, and became so popular that ITDC even put his picture in the ads for the restaurant. That manager is still as passionate about Japanese food. Except that he is now the CEO of the Taj group. He is called Puneet Chhatwal and is the country's leading hotelier. But sadly he no longer features in any ads!...