She made a promise to her dying husband. Now, Chizuko Kimura is the first female sushi chef to earn a Michelin star.

Before he died, sushi chef Shunei Kimura had one last wish for his wife.

Sushi Shunei, his namesake Paris restaurant, had just earned a Michelin star three months prior. He wanted its legacy to live on.

Chizuko Kimura had only begun cooking a year before, helping her husband in the kitchen as he underwent cancer treatment. But she honored his dying wish.

Three years later, Kimura became the first woman to receive a Michelin star as a sushi chef.

Kimura told Business Insider she “couldn’t believe it” when she first heard the news. Now, she’s sharing her story in the hopes it will show women that anything is possible.

Love with a side of sushi

Kimura grew up in Odawara, about an hour from Tokyo. The ocean was nearby, so fresh seafood was always on her family’s dinner table.

“I still remember the smell of soy sauce that always filled the kitchen, so familiar and comforting,” Kimura said. “I wasn’t cooking yet, but those memories stayed with me — in my nose and on my tongue.”

“I grew up in an environment where food had an important place,” she added. “Even though I never imagined I would work in that field one day.”

Kimura moved to Paris to begin working as a travel agent. One fateful day in 2004, she went to a sushi restaurant and met her future husband, who was working at the counter. A year later, they were married.

Shunei Kimura spent three decades working at sushi restaurants before he decided to open his own at the age of 63.

“He ended up fulfilling his two dreams: to open an edomae sushi restaurant under his name in Paris, and to earn a Michelin star,” Kimura said about her husband.

A new career

Sushi Shunei was scheduled to open in 2020, but was delayed for a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Kimura had been a tour guide but lost her job when much of the world went into lockdown, so she helped her husband open the restaurant.

“He never said to me, ‘Learn how to make sushi,'” Kimura recalled. “But he showed me everything, and I observed everything. I learned to prepare the fish, to cook the rice, to follow every detail.”

It was a crash course for a craft that typically takes a decade or more to perfect. But Kimura’s husband had been diagnosed with liver cancer in 2015 and was getting sicker.

“Normally, it takes many years to become a sushi chef, but I had to do it because Shunei couldn’t use his hands sometimes,” Kimura said. “Every day by his side was a learning experience. Even while sick, he never stopped teaching.”

Sushi Shunei opened on June 9, 2021, on Montmartre’s hill in the 18th arrondissement of Paris. Nine months later, the traditional sushiya received its first Michelin star in the 2022 Michelin Guide.

“He never complained, and no customer ever knew he was sick,” Kimura said. “He received that star at the age of 65, three months before his passing.”

One last promise

Kimura told BI that before her husband died, he asked her to keep his legacy alive with the restaurant.

“He said to me, ‘Could you keep this restaurant forever?'” Kimura recalled. “I have to continue. It’s my duty.”

She even kept the restaurant open on the day he died.

“I continued, because I knew that’s what he wanted,” Kimura said. “It wasn’t a matter of strength. It was for him.”

However, it wasn’t an easy transition, and Sushi Shunei lost its Michelin star in 2023.

“It was a shock. I felt as if I had lost Shunei a second time,” Kimura said. “I thought there might be no chance of getting the star back, but I didn’t give up.”

“I turned that pain into obsession,” she added. “I had to get it back. Not for me — for him.”

A star is born

Kimura hired sushi chef Takeshi Morooka to help as she continued to hone her skills, even training at Michelin-starred restaurants in Japan.

“Every morning, I got up to work. I continued day after day, without pause, I never stopped,” Kimura said. “I told myself, ‘I must give it my all. I must go all the way.’ There was no alternative.”

“The customers were a great support,” she added. “Some came several times just to encourage me. They told me they believed in me. Those words gave me courage.”

All that hard work paid off. When the 2025 Michelin Guide came out in March, the star was next to Sushi Shunei’s name once again. Kimura was now not only a Michelin-starred chef but also the first female sushi chef in the world to earn such a distinction.

“I thought of him, of Shunei,” Kimura said. “I felt, deep inside, that I had not betrayed his memory. For me, this is not a new star — it’s Shunei’s star that I managed to win back. I only continued what we had started together.”

Kimura is committed to keeping that star next to Sushi Shunei’s name. She hopes it will inspire women and anyone who has been told “that it was too late, or impossible.”

“Talent has no gender — only work and courage,” Kimura said. “Maybe it seemed unthinkable that at age 50, I would begin a career as a sushi chef without ever having cooked before. But what Shunei passed on to me is faith in work and in determination.”

“If you hold on, if you believe in what you’re doing, anything becomes possible,” she added. “That is the greatest lesson.”

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