Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a 2011 American documentary film directed by David Gelb.[2] The film follows Jiro Ono (小野 二郎 Ono Jirō?), an 85-year-old sushi master and owner of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a Michelin three-star restaurant, on his continuing quest to perfect the art of sushi. Sukiyabashi Jiro is a 10-seat, sushi-only restaurant located in a Tokyo subway station. Jiro Ono serves a tasting menu of roughly 20 courses, for a total of 30,000 Japanese yen ($281 USD). The film also profiles Jiro's two sons, both of whom are also sushi chefs. The younger son, Takashi (隆士), left Sukiyabashi Jiro to open a mirror image of his father's restaurant in Roppongi Hills. The 50-year-old elder son, Yoshikazu (禎一), obliged to succeed his father, still works for Jiro and is faced with the prospect of one day taking over the flagship restaurant. Initially, Gelb had planned to do what he had nicknamed "Planet Sushi", inspired by the cinematography of the BBC documentary Planet Earth:[5]

Originally, I was going to make a film with a lot of different sushi chefs who all had different styles, but when I got to Jiro's restaurant, I was not only amazed by how good the sushi was and how much greater it was than any other sushi restaurant I had ever been to, but I also found Jiro to be such a compelling character and such an interesting person. I was also fascinated by the story of his son, who is fifty years old, but still works for his father at the restaurant. sushi grade fish kensington marketSo, I thought, "Here's a story about a person living in his father's shadow while his father is in a relentless pursuit of perfection." where to buy sashimi grade salmon vancouverIt was the makings of a good feature film.sushi conveyor belt philippines

Food critic Masuhiro Yamamoto connected Gelb with Jiro.[6] Principal photography took Gelb one month (January 2010), augmented by additional scenes shot later that year in August; editing took 10 months. Jiro Dreams of Sushi debuted in the US in 2011 at the Provincetown International Film Festival[1] and was an official selection of the Tribeca Film Festival[7] in the same year. The documentary was made available on Netflix streaming on August 28, 2012.ichiban sushi menu mobile al As of 2013, the film has grossed $2,552,478 in North America. It is ranked 70th of all US Documentaries on Box Office Mojo. The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics. The film earned a rating of 99% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 88 reviews and an average rating of 7.8/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Beautiful, thoughtful, and engrossing, Jiro Dreams of Sushi should prove satisfying even for filmgoers who don't care for the cuisine."

[8] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 77 out of 100, based on 27 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Roger Ebert called it a "portrait of tunnel vision" and concluded:[10] While watching it, I found myself drawn into the mystery of this man. Are there any unrealized wishes in his life? If you find an occupation you love and spend your entire life working at it, is that enough? Standing behind his counter, Jiro notices things. Some customers are left-handed, some right-handed. That helps determine where they are seated at his counter. As he serves a perfect piece of sushi, he observes it being eaten. He knows the history of that piece of seafood. He knows his staff has recently started massaging an octopus for 45 minutes and not half an hour, for example. Does he search a customer's eyes for a signal that this change has been an improvement? Half an hour of massage was good enough to win three Michelin stars. You realize the tragedy of Jiro Ono's life is that there are not, and will never be, four stars.

Gelb, a "huge Philip Glass fan", has commented on his use of Philip Glass compositions in the film's soundtrack:[11] In hindsight, I think it works because Philip Glass's music is kind of a metaphor for Jiro's work ethic, because it's repetitive but it also builds on itself and escalates, and it's the same with Jiro's work. Because every day he's going, he's doing the same routine, and trying to do everything exactly the same, but just reaching for that one step of improvement, and I feel like the music's doing the same thing, so they match perfectly. The soundtrack includes the following:[12] Tchaikovsky: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D, Opus 35 – Allegro Moderato. Jascha Heifetz (violin), John Barbirolli/London Philharmonic Orchestra Philip Glass: "I'm Going to Go Make a Cake" Max Richter: "Berlin by Overnight" Richter: "On the Nature of Daylight" Glass: "Gertrude Leave the Summer House" Glass: Etude No. 5 The Ontic: "Off to Market"[13]

Werner Hagen: "African Journey" by Anugama Glass: String Quartet No. 4 (Buzcak): I. Kronos Quartet Glass: Etude No. 2 Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 21 in C, K. 467 – Andante. Alfred Brendel (piano), Neville Marriner/Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Bach and Michael Kohlbecker: Cello Suite no. 1: Prelude. Performed by Fûnf D. Film in the United States portal ^ a b cAt 86, Japanese chef Jiro Ono is considered by many to be the greatest sushi chef in the world. Customers pay top dollar and make reservations for his three–Michelin star Tokyo restaurant, Sukiyabashi Jiro, up to a year in advance. Now the sushi master is profiled in David Gelb’s mouthwatering documentary, Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Plus see photos of Ono’s magnificent creations. The Ginza district of Chuo, Tokyo, is widely recognized as one of the world’s most luxurious shopping centers. Amid the numerous flagship stores, including Chanel, Dior, and Sony, lies a dull, tan-colored office building.

Tucked away in its basement, just a glass door away from a subway platform, is Sukiyabashi Jiro—a tiny sushi bar with only 10 seats and no bathroom on the premises, but it’s enough to have earned three Michelin stars. Behind the sushi bar, a bald, bespectacled, 86-year-old chef meticulously sculpts his miniature gems like a culinary Michelangelo. His name is Jiro Ono, and he is, according to acclaimed chefs Joël Robuchon, Eric Ripert, Anthony Bourdain, and countless others, hailed as the greatest sushi chef in the world. “I was blown away by the quality of the sushi, especially the rice,” said Ripert, who runs the acclaimed French restaurant Le Bernardin in New York City, at a recent Japan Society event. “I had never tasted rice like that. It was like this cloud that explodes in your mouth.”Jiro Ono is also now the subject of the critically acclaimed mouthwatering documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Directed by 28-year-old filmmaker David Gelb, the film profiles the man many consider to be the world’s greatest sushi chef and his relationships with his two sons—Yoshikazu and Takashi—with the former serving as his father’s long-suffering second in command who will one day take the reins at the Sukiyabashi Jiro.

Gelb, who has been visiting Japan since he was 2 years old, got the idea for a sushi documentary while watching BBC’s Planet Earth. “Why doesn’t anybody shoot sushi like this?” he asked himself. He was then put in touch with renowned food critic Masuhiro Yamamoto, who is a friend of Gelb’s father, Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Yamamoto took Gelb on a tour of Japanese sushi restaurants, but when they dined at Sukiyabashi Jiro, the young filmmaker knew he’d found his subject. “I was blown away by how interesting Jiro was and how his eldest son, Yoshikazu, was still working alongside him at the sushi bar,” Gelb told The Daily Beast. The story of Ono’s rise to the top of his profession is as compelling as his sushi is delicious. His father, an alcoholic who worked in a military factory, abandoned the family when Ono was just 7 years old. He left home at age 9 and was told, “You have no home to come back to.” He started apprenticing at a sushi shop and has been working the same job for 76 years.

Ono also currently holds the distinction of being the Guinness World Record holder for the world’s oldest three–Michelin star chef. Despite his advancing age, Ono still takes the subway to work every morning and oversees nearly every facet of his restaurant—from planning the seating arrangements to the menu. According to Ono’s 51-year-old son and heir apparent, Yoshikazu, the chef takes off only for national holidays or funerals. But Ono has cut back in recent years: at age 70, he had a heart attack and decided to give up not only smoking, but also purchasing high-quality fish every morning at the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo—“the top seafood market in the world,” according to acclaimed sushi chef Masaharu Morimoto. Yoshikazu now makes the daily bicycle ride. In addition to the best fish, Ono also has a special rice dealer who only sells his best grains to him because he believes he’s the only chef in the world who can properly cook his rice (the Grand Hyatt Tokyo, a five-star hotel, tried to retain his services, but he turned them down flat).

Only six people work at Ono’s establishment: Yoshikazu; another shokunin, or sushi chef; three apprentices, who must train with Ono for a decade to attain the status of shokunin; a woman who handles all the accounting and the cash register (the place takes cash only); and a woman who cleans the restaurant. “You must dedicate your life to mastering this skill,” Ono says in the film. “This is the key to success.” To dine the 10-seat Sukiyabashi Jiro, one must make a reservation up to a year in advance and shell out 30,000 yen ($368) for a fixed menu of 20 pieces of sushi—the restaurant serves only sushi. Diners talk of being intimidated by Ono, who stands behind the sushi bar with a stony-faced look while customers indulge in his minimalist creations. He ages his tuna for up to 10 days, and apprentices massage the octopus’s by hand for 50 minutes before preparing it. The octogenarian is such a perfectionist that he’ll even make his sushi different sizes for different customers, so that an entire party finishes the food at the same time.

“Because of the air filtration in the basement, the air is the exact same every single day,” said Gelb. “If everything’s constant, then if something tastes different in the food, he’s able to identity that changing factor.” Gelb pauses, and grins. “That’s how serious he is.” “He is a purist,” says chef Masato Shimizu, who runs the well-regarded sushi restaurant 15 East in New York City.In addition to Ono’s modus operandi, as well as his relationship with Yoshikazu, who struggles to make his own mark and rise from behind his father’s enormous shadow, Gelb’s film also examines the worldwide sushi craze, which seemed to begin in the mid-1980s with the invention of the California roll—taking sushi from Japan to the U.S. and then Europe. According to Ono and Yoshikazu, since sushi has become so immensely popular, it’s become more difficult to create high-quality product due to a dearth in high-quality fish from overfishing (blue-fin tuna, in particular, has become an endangered species in certain parts of the world).