Chef Niki Nakayama crafts 13-course tasting menus that feature exquisite, meticulously plated food, such as blue crab–stuffed zucchini blossoms accompanied by a quenelle of curry salt–dusted carrot sorbet, a dollop of mirin-soy–rice vinegar jelly on the side and a purple nasturtium perched on top. Yet Nakayama, 40, makes a conscious choice to remain behind a partition, simply because she's had trouble with customers noticing the obvious—that she's a woman.