Niki Nakayama was born on 1975 in Los Angeles, she is a Japanese-American chef and the owner of Michelin-starred n/naka restaurant in Los Angeles, specializing in modern Japanese kaiseki cuisine. Nakayama was born to Japanese parents in Koreatown in Los Angeles. Her parents worked as fish distributors (now run by her older brother) and ended up divorcing when Nakayama was 12. She later attended culinary school in Pasadena, after which she worked at Mori Sushi. "Committed to exploring new techniques," she then began a three-year working tour of Japan, where she immersed herself as much as possible "in the essentials of Japanese cuisine." While there, she cooked at Shirakawa-Ya Ryokan under Chef Masa Sato, a Japanese country-style inn owned by her cousins that was renowned for its kaiseki cuisine. Her experiences with Japanese cuisine deeply influenced her, and upon returning to California, opened Azami Sushi Cafe (known for its all female staff) with the stressful help of her family. Ultimately, she opened her now famous n/naka restaurant in Los Angeles, where she works with her wife, Carole Iida, who is a partner and sous chef at n/naka. Nakayama and Iida reside in Arcadia, California. Nakayama serves a multi-course Japanese menu which features seasonal ingredients and multiple preparation styles that showcase the chosen ingredients. This way of cooking is known as kaiseki. N/naka is known for serving 13 course meals, in which all the dishes have a natural flow and progression to them, and uses highly seasonal ingredients, some of which come from Nakayama's own home garden which provides plenty of vegetables and herbs. Her "menu emphasizes seasonality, and the courses are structured to showcase ingredients using a sequence of preparations: A raw dish is followed by a grilled dish, then a braised or steamed dish, then a fried dish and so on, from light to heavy to light again. Designed to accompany tea ceremonies in monasteries, kaiseki began in 16th-century Japan as beautifully presented yet austere vegetarian fare. Over the centuries, the cuisine evolved to encompass a nearly opposite concept: food as luxury, a feast for a crowd. Nakayama makes what she calls "modern kaiseki," grounded in the Buddhist custom but open to interpretation." Nakayama's style of kaiseki is expressive of her own belief that the chef should never lose track of the ingredient's integrity, and that guest's experience in her restaurant is of the utmost importance. In 2019, n/naka was one of six Los Angeles restaurants to receive two stars in the Michelin Guide. Also in 2019 n/naka was named to Food & Wine's 30 best restaurants in the world. Despite n/naka's critical acclaim, Chef Nakayama's cuisine was not always met with such positive reviews. Being a woman in the typically male-dominated world of high-end cuisine is usually difficult enough, but being a female chef in the predominantly male world of Japanese cooking gave her an additional set of obstacles, requiring her to constantly prove her abilities as a chef.

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