Katsuji Tanabe grew up in Mexico City, the son of a Japanese father and Mexican mother, and in his house, the melding of the cuisines of his parents happened naturally.

Tanabe’s father would make tempura and his mother would buy tortillas, “and we would make tempura tacos, and I would be like, oh my God! We would always have steamed rice, but with Mexican food. We didn’t call it fusion, we called it dinner!”

He remembers going to a friend’s house when he was 9, and being surprised to see his pal put hot sauce on his fideo — a traditional dish of brothy spaghetti and tomato sauce. In Tanabe’s house, shoyu was the normal condiment. “At that moment I realized that my family and his family were not the same,” he recalls.

This is what he loves about being a chef — telling a story, and his story happens to be a tale of two cultures. “People ask me what do I cook, Mexican or Japanese? Well, I look Mexican, I sound Mexican, but I cook Japanese in a way that I respect the food and the ingredients.”

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Combining Japanese flavors with Latin cuisines — particularly of Mexico and Peru — has a long history south of the border. A meeting of the cuisines occurred at this year’s Hawai‘i Food & Wine Festival, at Friday’s late-night party, Fiesta 24/7, where Tanabe and Peruvian chef Ricardo Zarate both offered Japanese-accented dishes, arrived at via very different roads.

Tanabe gained U.S. recognition as the hot head on Season 12 of “Top Chef.” He may have provided many viewers’ first insight into the Japanese in Mexico, a heritage that dates to 1614, when the samurai and ambassador Hasekura Tsunenaga spent two months in Acupulco and Mexico City en route to Europe to strike up trade deals.

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In Peru, Nikkei cuisine represents the food that evolved over 100 years following the arrival of Japanese immigrants in that country. Chef Nobu Matsuhisa made his name with his take on Peruvian Nikkei dining — the Peruvian government honored him with a Friends of Peru Award in 2017 in recognition of his work — and now a new generation of Peruvian chefs is planting the Nikkei flag.

Leading the way is Zarate, originally from Lima and now based in Los Angeles, where he oversees his lauded restaurant Rosaline, as well Once in Las Vegas (he opens a second Once — pronouced “own-say,” Spanish for 11 — in Brooklyn next month).

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Zarate explains that the Japanese government made an agreement with the Peruvian government to send laborers, the majority of them Okinawan, to work in cotton fields, much as Japanese were sent to Hawaii to work the plantations. That agreement included shipping Japanese ingredients to Peru so the field hands could cook their comfort foods.

“But they also realized that we share the same ocean, and the same latitude,” says Zarate.

“The Japanese were very impressed by how rich our ocean was, but Peruvians didn’t exploit it or appreciate it, because it’s mainly a country of the mountains. Even if the majority of people live on the coast, we were consuming potatoes, meat, food of the Inca culture.”

In his reading of 19th-century Peruvian cookbooks, Zarate found few seafood dishes. He says that approach changed with the arrival of the Japanese, who, also as in Hawaii, soon broke away from the plantations to start food businesses.

“They found a niche,” says Zarate. “They understood seafood and they saw we had a whole ocean. Nikkei cuisine was born in Peru, and that’s what I’m doing today.”

Ceviche was created as a way to preserve fish — in “the old times” in Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Venezuela, in addition to Peru, he says. It was marinated in vinegar or lemon for up to 48 hours, to kill bacteria. But now, thanks to Japanese influence, Peruvian ceviche stands out. “We no longer cook it, we just marinate it a couple of minutes and eat it raw, it’s like sashimi with ceviche sauce,” says Zarate.

For Friday’s event, he used ceviche as a platform for creativity, marinating ahi with garlic, salt and pepper, then searing it. Roasted Kauai shrimp became a mousse. He combined the two, placed it all on a taro chip, and added a ceviche sauce. “And that is a perfect marriage,” said Zarate.

And it was, a calm seafood counterpoint to Tanabe’s energetic beef. Tanabe rolled up slices of barely grilled beef stuffed with a Maui onion relish bright with cilantro, lime and fish sauce and splashed with yuzu-habanero hot sauce. “Like a carne asada,” he said, yet with its palate-awakening acid and heat, worlds away from any Mexican dish you’ve ever had here.

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In his research for his Hawaii debut, Tanabe learned about a Mexican connection to the islands. “In Hawaii they brought cows hundreds of years ago, but who did they bring to teach the local people how to be cowboys? They brought Mexicans!” he says in his rat-a-tat, accented delivery. “So the moment I saw local dry-aged beef (on a list of available ingredients), I wanted that.”

In addition, Tanabe realized that Hawaii is at the same latitude as the state and city of Colima, on the west coast of Mexico. He knows the region well — it is his wife’s home — and says it has a volcanic geology and flavors similar to Hawaii.

Tanabe recently moved to Raleigh, N.C, where he is opening his seventh restaurant, where his Mexican-Japanese dishes will be cooked on all-wood fire.

Asked what he thought of his first trip to Hawaii, he said he already was into dishes like loco moco, thanks to the many cooks from Hawaii in the kitchen of his Las Vegas restaurant. He had been in Honolulu only four hours, but had already taken his daughters to Rainbow Drive-In. “It was so good.”

Being in Hawaii, “kind of gives you the chills. It’s so romantic, and a place to create memories.”

When blending cuisines, Tanabe underscores that one needs to be central to each dish. “So if you have a mix of Japanese and Mexican, well, who’s really the star? In my case it’s Mexican, but my foundation is Japanese — so bonito flakes, dashi broth, sake, mirin — and I build the flavors from there. I add things like chilies and moles.”

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Zarate, asked for his advice in combining Japanese and Latin flavors, turns to the art world for a metaphor. “If I ask you to create the most beautiful pink color, you’re going to tell me, ‘You need red and white,’ correct? You could put different amounts of white for different shades of pink. But to make it unique, maybe you add one tiny dot of blue — and that’s your pink. That’s how you make flavors.”