Los Angeles Chef Akira Hirose, Who Opened Maison Akira and Azay, Has Died at 70

Akira Hirose, the acclaimed chef behind Pasadena’s influential French Japanese restaurant Maison Akira and Little Tokyo’s Azay, died at his home on September 26 at age 70, his son Philip confirmed to Eater.

Born in Kyoto in 1954, Hirose was drawn to cooking from an early age, often shadowing his mother in the kitchen and dreaming of one day becoming a chef. He began his culinary career in the 1970s in the French countryside, training at the French chateau Azay-le-Rideau, before working at Maxim’s de Paris and Hotel Nikko when chef Joël Robuchon led the kitchen. In 1981, he moved to Los Angeles to work at the legendary French restaurant L’Orangerie. In the same year, Hirose visited Los Angeles’s Little Tokyo for the first time and met his future wife, Jo Ann Hirose (nee Maehara), whose family owned a hardware store in the neighborhood. On that trip, he was introduced to Los Angeles’s Japanese diaspora and found a new family stateside. “I feel like him meeting my mom and Japanese America was a turning point in a way,” Philip says.

In 1983, he opened a French restaurant in Kyoto called Azay-le-Rideau before moving back to California to cook at the Tower at the Transamerica building in Downtown LA. Then in 1998, he opened Maison Akira in Pasadena; in December of the same year, Los Angeles Times critic S. Irene Virbila wrote of Hirose’s unabashed “Franco-Japanese” style and menu items like the “eccentric” ratatouille and a foie gras flan. Though Philip was too young to work at Maison Akira, he fondly remembers stowing away in the restaurant’s office as his family entertained friends who had come to eat there.

Reflecting on Hirose’s past restaurants, Philip sees the influences of two great global cuisines as a portal into his father’s life and experience. “When he was in France, in the town of Azay, he opened the world of Japan to them that they were not familiar with, because he was the only Asian person there,” he says. “Then, when [Maison Akira] was here, he opened the door to France in Japan that a lot of people didn’t know.”

For over 50 years Japanese chefs have helped shape French fine dining, and vice-versa; the influence can be traced back to the 1960s when French chefs began to spend time in Japan, and Japanese chefs began to cook in France. That relationship is still seen today at restaurants like Camélia in the Arts District, which serves French-leaning dishes with Japanese ingredients.

After two decades, Hirose closed Maison Akira in 2019. Philip jokes that his father wasn’t the best businessman because he cared more about hospitality than the bottom line. “He cared about feeding people and his staff,” said Philip.

On September 14, 2019, Hirose opened Azay with his family in the space that used to be Jo Ann’s family hardware store. The hardware store had moved down the street by then, but her family held onto the building. Azay was a culmination of the last four decades of Hirose’s cooking career. Azay, which remains open, serves traditional Japanese breakfast bentos in the daytime alongside housemade rillette and pate. In the evenings, the revolving menu includes dishes like uni milk toast and amberjack crudo. It was rare to see Hirose without a gentle smile as he cooked in the open kitchen with the easy confidence and joy of someone doing what they loved.

In the years since opening, Azay has become a cultural hub for the Little Tokyo community, hosting chef pop-ups, political campaign events, and local artist performances. As Little Tokyo has quickly gentrified around the restaurant, Azay has remained as bastion of the neighborhood, supporting its neighbors through its hospitality and community fund. Philip worked closely with his father there, helping with front-of-house work and accounting.

“When we first opened, there were people wondering, Are we a French Japanese restaurant?” Philip says. “I’m leaning more towards like, we’re a diaspora restaurant that has those elements.” At the back of the restaurant hangs a painting of Azay-le-Rideau that watches over the dining room and the kitchen as a tribute to Hirose’s love for the French countryside.

In August 2024, chef Chris Ono joined Azay to help Hirose, who was working lunch and dinner shifts most days of the week. The pair met when Ono was cooking at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (JACCC) and built a friendship over the years. Even before meeting and eventually working together, Ono always looked up to Hirose. “He is a godfather of the dining scene in LA,” says Ono. Over the years, Hirose crossed paths with notable chefs and hospitality professionals like Roy Yamaguchi (Roy’s), Ray Hayashi (RYLA), Morihiro Onodera (Morihiro), and Francois Renaud, leaving his mark on each of them. After his death, Renaud posted a tribute to Hirose on Instagram writing, “Akira was the chef’s chef, and in an era of oversized egos, showing them all what class meant.”

Ono only got to cook on the line once with Hirose at Azay, but will carry the memory of preparing ratatouille together forever. “This one was so real, very homey” he says. “I just felt like he had nothing to hide or prove. He just told me, ‘You cook the ratatouille how you want it, just make sure it has the Herbes de Provence.’”

In the wake of Hirose’s passing, Philip has been reflecting on Akira as a father and chef. “He was a lot about the French countryside,” he says. “He was a lot about being anti-capitalist, caring about people, but also learning.” Through the years of working in close proximity to each other as partners at the restaurant, Philip had the opportunity to watch his father evolve and change with the restaurant and the community surrounding it. Ono adds to the sentiment saying, “He knew who he was, he was genuine, he was 100 percent a man of his word.”

Even though Hirose isn’t on the line at Azay anymore, Philip can still feel him in the restaurant as regulars come in for their daily bento and omurice, or sit on the sidewalk outside the restaurant chatting with passersby. “I know that, like physically, he’s not here, but spiritually he is,” he says.

Hirose is survived by his wife Jo Ann and children, Philip and Michelle.

The Hirose family will celebrate Akira’s life at funeral services at Los Angeles Hompa Hongwanji Buddhist Temple in Little Tokyo on October 13. Chefs are encouraged to wear their chef’s whites to the service.