jiro dreams of sushi seattle
So, what is Daisuke Nakazawa doing in Seattle after 11 years under the tutelage of Shiro Kashiba's longtime friend and mentor? Nancy Leson tells all. DAISUKE NAKAZAWA’S grin widened when I ordered “omakase” at Shiro’s last June — giving the 34-year-old sushi chef, newly arrived from Tokyo, the go-ahead to show me what he’s got. What he didn’t have was command of the English language. Smiling and nodding, he presented me with Spanish mackerel (“sawara!”) and fresh Hood Canal shrimp (“amaebi!”), then, at meal’s end, handed-off a pair of tamago nigiri, crowing, “Jiro Dreams of Sushi!” “Yes,” I said, admiring the thick cut of his sweet omelet. “I saw that documentary,” an homage to Jiro Ono, the elderly owner of a 10-seat sushi bar in a Ginza district subway station — and the man some call the world’s greatest sushi chef. “Jiro Dreams of Sushi!” Daisuke repeated, when it was clear I’d missed his point. I failed to recognize this smiling sushiman as the film’s solemn senior apprentice who famously recounted making tamago under the stern eye of Jiro Ono: months of failure, 200 rejections and, finally, approval.
“I was so happy I cried,” the subtitle read. So, what is Daisuke doing in Seattle after 11 years under the tutelage of Shiro Kashiba’s longtime friend and mentor?Shiro doesn’t have any,” explains a translator speaking for the majority owner who bought Shiro’s in 2007. “We want Shiro to keep working,” as he does three nights a week, “but we need a next generation.” “I’m a lucky boy,” adds Daisuke, recruited to sustain the tradition of edomae sushi — the classics, hold the mango-tango roll — under Shiro’s Belltown banner. Since his arrival, he’s been an enthusiastic student of ESL, and learned to chide pickled-ginger-scarfing patrons with Shiro-esque wit, noting that palate refresher is meant “to change taste; it is not a salad!” He’s appeared with Shiro at community events and shared Jiro’s secrets with his colleagues, showing them how to smoke king mackerel over hay. And he expresses his naturally ebullient character, says Shiro, when he jokes, “bluefin, the Wagyu beef of sushi!”
Daisuke was 19 when he got his first job at a suburban sushi joint. He gave it up to work as a “salaryman” for an Internet company, leaving that job to take on two more: waking at 4:30 a.m. to schlep tuna carcasses at Tsukiji market, then working nights in a restaurant. He married on his 23rd birthday, about the time Jiro Ono placed a want ad for an apprentice.
sushi grade fish indianapolis“Lucky boy” got the job at Sukiyabashi Jiro — which later earned three Michelin stars.
itsu sushi order online For the first three months, he recalls, “It was all cleaning, all obeying, saying ‘Yes, yes,’ and never talking back.”
where to get sushi grade fish calgary
At Shiro’s, “It’s about enjoyment and entertainment.” Shiro, 71, says his ambitious new hire has what it takes to spread the gospel of old-school sushi in America. As for Daisuke, “My dream,” he says, “is to be the No. 1 sushi chef in the U.S.” Nancy Leson is The Seattle Times’ food writer. Benjamin Benschneider is a Pacific NW magazine staff photographer.Sushi Kashiba is brand-new in Pike Place Market, and the lines have already started. Seattle sushi fans have been waiting with bated breath, and at last, the beloved Shiro Kashiba’s new restaurant is open. It’s called Sushi Kashiba, and it’s in Pike Place Market where the storied fine-dining institution Campagne (later the more casual, short-lived Marché) used to be. Shiro’s son Ed Kashiba is the director of operations, and he hastens to add that they’re “not officially really open yet” — the grand opening is December 1. But two soft-opening days in, he admits, “The line has already started” prior to Sushi Kashiba’s 5 p.m. start time both days.
“It’s kind of hard to keep the secret,” Ed Kashiba says. As for the space, “It looks completely different. It’s just stunning, in my humble opinion.” It’s got “very clean lines,” and there’s a full sushi bar (of course), plus the dining room and a full cocktail bar as well. Ed Kashiba calls the space “immaculate… Just stunning views, obviously, of the Market as well as the Sound.” (Brought up here, he’s been living in Los Angeles, working in the entertainment business; he moved back to help his dad with the launch. He says of the space, “I feel like, ‘Oh wow, I’m in Seattle.”) Most Read StoriesFor some background on local sushi hero Shiro Kashiba: He had his Belltown restaurant, Shiro’s, for 20 years, from 1994 through 2014. (It’s still open, under different management.) He was strict about his sushi bar there: He’d admonish people not to use too much (or sometimes “NO!”) soy sauce, and even tell them how long to chew. But he’d also take delight in your blissed-out enjoyment of his uni, chortling, “Chocolate from the sea!”
He was an early improviser of local and sustainable fish, visiting his suppliers to salvage salmon skin to create salmon skin rolls; likewise, he popularized salmon roe sushi and pioneered geoduck sushi. His memoir Shiro: Wit, Wisdom and Recipes from a Sushi Pioneer is well worth a look for anyone interested in sushi and/or the Northwest. The many photos included from his life are a story in themselves. Of sushi-nerd note, Shiro Kashiba trained with Jiro Ono in the early 1960s in Tokyo — as in Jiro from Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Then, here in Seattle a few years back, later Jiro protege Daisuke Nakazawa worked with Kashiba at Shiro’s before moving to New York to open the four-star Sushi Nakazawa. (Nakazawa was the one who made 200 trays of eggs — tamagoyaki, the Japanese omelet — before getting it right in Jiro Dreams of Sushi.) Sushi Kashiba is open from 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. daily (closed Thanksgiving). Custom-curated news highlights, delivered weekday mornings.