David Gelb's mouth-watering documentary takes us downstairs at a Tokyo metro station, where 85-year-old masterchef Jiro Ono is quietly devoting his life to sushi perfection Watch Jiro: Dreams of Sushi here Click here to put a question to director David Gelb in a live webchat Reading on a mobile? Click here to watch video One of the best lines in Jiro Dreams of Sushi could have come straight out of another great Japanese film – Tampopo, the brilliant "noodle western" that is the funniest film ever made about food. Where Tampopo was a satirical paean to ramen, Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a fascinating documentary about a Michelin three-star restaurant in Tokyo, called Jiro, which serves top-quality sushi – and only top-quality sushi – starting at 30,000 yen (£210) for a 20-piece tasting course. A food critic quips that, because the meal can be eaten in only a quarter of an hour, Jiro is minute-for-minute the most expensive restaurant in the world. Yet with its 10 seats, total lack of decor and bizarre location in a featureless, fluorescent-lit corridor down a set of stairs in Ginza metro station, Jiro is as unassuming as its master chef, 85-year-old Jiro Ono.

For 75 uninterrupted years, since before the outbreak of the second world war, every day except for national holidays and the occasional Sunday, Jiro has spent all of his time devoted to doing just one thing: making sushi. "I wasn't much of a father," Jiro says. "More of a stranger." His dedication to his tradecraft is guaranteed to put you and everyone you know to shame. In Jiro's regime, apprentices – one of whom is his eldest son Yoshi, who at 50 is considered still too green to take over the family business – must spend 10 years learning to use their knives before they're allowed to cook even eggs. To become a shokunin, a skilled craftsman, someone who does the same exact thing every day to the highest possible level in the neverending pursuit of perfection. We meet a cast of obsessives – the rice guy, the shrimp guy – who lead us to the film's centrepiece, the great singing tuna auctioneers of Tsukiji fish market. With the market about to be moved to a soulless new venue, this section of the film amounts to a historically important bit of documentary.

And if you don't want to punch the air yourself when Jiro leans forward with 75 years of fire in his eyes and fervently extols the "harmony of fish, sushi rice and soy sauce", then your blood runs colder than anago. The exquisite nigiri slices gleam with freshness, and you do learn about the component parts to the perfect serving of sea eel or gizzard shad. January 8, 2013 | It's torture to watch Jiro Dreams of Sushi -- if you are on an empty stomach. January 7, 2013 | By the time this graceful film is over you understand why Japan has declared the bald, bespectacled Jiro a national treasure. Even if you've never tasted sushi, the man's singleness of purpose will inspire you. April 20, 2012 | Gelb apparently understood that his subject was itself so taking that he wouldn't need filmic embellishments to keep his viewers alert. Obsessive, we were saying? Oh my, yes, and that's what makes the film so compelling. April 19, 2012 | This documentary strikes a balance between storytelling and food porn that's hard to come by in foodie flicks.

Like a proper sushi meal, "Jiro" left me feeling sated, not stuffed. April 12, 2012 | 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. jiro dreams of sushi eugeneSukiyabashi Jiro is a 10-seat, sushi-only restaurant located in a Tokyo subway station. youda sushi chef gioco onlineJiro Ono serves a tasting menu of roughly 20 courses, for a total of 30,000 Japanese yen ($281 USD).sushi grade fish somerville The film also profiles Jiro's two sons, both of whom are also sushi chefs. jiro dreams of sushi yelp

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.sushi zushi austin order online Initially, Gelb had planned to do what he had nicknamed "Planet Sushi", inspired by the cinematography of the BBC documentary Planet Earth:[5]sushi grade tuna omaha 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. So, 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." It was the makings of a good feature film. 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. 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"