After majoring in art at the Pratt Institute, Masayo Funakoshi discovered creative potential in cuisine and subsequently graduated from cooking school in New York. After working at such restaurants in New York as Blue Hill, she spent time traveling around Europe and Asia. Funakoshi has crossed the Atlantic while serving as a chef on an Australian cruise ship, worked for a well-established hotel in Paris as a chef, and helped to launch kiln, a restaurant in Kyoto, as its chef and director. She is currently director of Food Anthology.