With a deep love for food and a flair for surprise, Chef Jonny Sims creates each dish to be truly memorable.
Onboard ASANI, dining is a journey of the senses. Woven with creativity, flavour and soul, every plate crafted by Chef Jonny Sims becomes a memory. Following a career that spans fine-dining restaurants in England and the French Riviera, and luxury yachts around the world, Jonny now delights ASANI’s guests with his playful and imaginative cooking.
His passion for the craft runs deep. “I’ve always had a love for food and feeding people,” he says – a simple truth that has guided his path since the age of 17, when he first stepped into the heat of a professional kitchen. By 20, he had opened his own fine-dining restaurant in the medieval village of Tourrettes-sur-Loup, perched above Cannes. There, he led a team of chefs for over six years, creating menus in a setting both grounded and refined.
But more than anything, Jonny thrives on the spontaneity of omakase-style dining – a Japanese concept where the chef serves a series of small plates guided by instinct and seasonality. Restaurants like Nobu and Hakkasan act as reference points, but his dishes are always infused with his own unique personality. Distinctive yet adaptable, he crafts every menu to reflect the tastes and desires of ASANI’s guests.
Being a yacht chef grants Jonny access to rare and remarkable ingredients – tiny treasures that spark his imagination. “I can use the most amazing produce that would otherwise be impossible to attain,” he says. “I find it very inspiring.”
Among his favourite discoveries is battera kombu – a delicate white seaweed harvested in a small Japanese village, where only around a thousand packs are made each year. “Chiffonade it, fry it and it becomes sweet, savoury, laced with umami,” he describes. “It’s incredibly special and something I’d never have found without the reach of yachting.”
Travel, too, is a muse, offering an ever-changing palette of ingredients. Capri’s cherry tomatoes, as sweet as jelly tots. Oversized Amalfi lemons, fragrant and zesty. Creamy French cheeses, and market vegetables picked just hours before lunch. Each destination ASANI visits brings new colours, flavours and ideas to the plate.
No two menus onboard are ever the same. Jonny responds to the surroundings, the season and – above all – to those around his table. Every dish is an opportunity to surprise. “I want guests to taste something they’ve never had before,” he says. “And for it to be something they want to taste again.”
Whether it’s a long, leisurely lunch on deck or an elegant tasting menu under the stars, dining onboard ASANI is never just a meal. It’s a celebration of flavour, discovery and the joy of moments shared – ones that linger long after the last bite.
