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. how to roll sushi bamboo matSo, 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." jogo sushi bar click jogosIt was the makings of a good feature film.sushi conveyor belt design

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.sushi grade fish suppliers uk As of 2013, the film has grossed $2,552,478 in North America. jiro dreams of sushi ny timesIt is ranked 70th of all US Documentaries on Box Office Mojo.where to buy sushi grade tuna in nyc The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics. where to buy sushi grade salmon nyc

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 c"I'm not an expert at making sushi," says David Gelb, with a pair of chopsticks poised above a plate of tuna sashimi at Sugarfish by Sushi Nozawa downtown, "but I'm an expert at eating sushi." After filming 150 hours of footage at Sukiyabashi Jiro, the famed Michelin three-star sushi bar in Tokyo's Ginza district, the 28-year-old director of the documentary "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" knows a thing or two about nigiri and maki.

"I like that the seaweed here is crispy," he says of a toro hand roll, into which he deftly pours a drop or two of soy sauce. Gelb's film is set to premiere in Los Angeles on Friday, and he has just returned from its debut in New York. The movie, which showed at last year's Tribeca Film Festival and was bought by Magnolia Pictures, has captured the attention of more than just food lovers, as Gelb has been talking up sushi-porn scenes and the importance of rice preparation on the media circuit. Naturally, the fooderati are drooling. "I think I was lucky," says Gelb, dressed in a black T-shirt and bright blue Adidas sneakers. "Part of it is that there hasn't been a film about this level of sushi." Although reviews have been mixed, he says the goal was to film something "restrained and elegant" instead of relying on the "reality show kind of camera" usually aimed at food and cooking subjects. "I wanted to show sushi as an art form." The artist behind the sushi is Jiro Ono, the much-revered octogenarian proprietor of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a tiny restaurant that seats 10 next to a subway exit in the basement of a Tokyo office building.

"He's a perfectionist in everything that he does, even the way he walks," says Gelb. "Look at his posture." An example of Ono's quest for perfection is detailed in the movie through an apprentice's attempts to prepare Ono's tamago, which Gelb says includes a mix of shrimp puree, grated mountain yam, sake and egg, turned into a custard-like cake. The apprentice had to make it more than 200 times -- yes, 200 -- before it met Ono's approval. Tamago "is so misunderstood," Gelb says. "Americans don't appreciate the egg." But it's the glistening fish that is the showstopper (shot mainly on a Red One digital camera), particularly during an omakase dinner scene of sushi close-ups set to Mozart. Each luscious slice of fish is shot so that the audience can see it settle on a pillow of rice. In front of a row of rapt diners, a baroque piece of hamaguri clam softly droops as a rivulet of sauce follows the curve of one edge. "I didn't get do-overs with the sushi," Gelb says. "With that shallow, delicate focus the margin of error is greater than if I'd used the 'reality show camera.'