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. 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.jogos de sushi zuma The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics. where to buy a sushi making kit in torontoThe film earned a rating of 99% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 88 reviews and an average rating of 7.8/10. sushi making kit amazonThe 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."yo sushi voucher discount

[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 Contribute to This PageThere’s something weirdly off-putting about the music cues in "Jiro Dreams of Sushi," a documentary-cum-character study of an 85-year-old sushi “shokunin” or craftsman. Octogenarian Jiro Ono is the cheeriest of workaholics. He can’t imagine retiring, at least not until he’s either too ugly or too infirm to serve his patrons. Simply put, Ono loves his demanding job as the head chef at Sukiyabashi Jiro, his own 10-seat, Ginza-based sushi bar. Sukiyabashi Jiro is the smallest restaurant to be given a three-star rating by the Michelin Guide. To Ono, being passionate about your job is the only option.

Which is ostensibly why director David Gelb presents Ono and his restaurant team’s meticulous process of food preparation with a mix of dreamy awe and fetishized attention to detail. This approach sounds fitting in theory. But in practice, it’s less than satisfying. Gelb films some prep scenes of fish being pared and then turned into sushi in slow motion while the film’s bombastic and melancholic score, composed largely of music by Phillip Glass and Max Richter, does most of the talking. That music almost single-handedly destroys the emotional equilibrium of key scenes that establish the film’s main thesis, namely that work in Ono’s world is both a dream and discipline. While its director’s reverence and vision is apparent, "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" often feels overdone thanks to Gelb’s unusual mix of tones. The meals at Jiro Ono’s restaurant start at $300 and only revolve around sushi. There are no other appetizers available and you must make a reservation about a month in advance to get a seat.

Jiro’s eldest son, Yoshikazu, explains that, “We’re not trying to be exclusive or elite.” Instead, it’s a point of pride for the Onos to be completely thorough. That aura of single-minded focus determines much of Gelb’s vision of Ono as a master shokunin. For example, Yoshikazu makes a point of buying the restaurant’s fish from vendors at the Tsukiji Fish Market that only specialize in tuna or shrimp. And yet, a big part of what’s so refreshing about Jiro Ono is how modest and self-critical he is. That endearing trait is also wisely highlighted early on in the film when a prominent Japanese food critic mentions how tirelessly Jiro works to improve his recipes and to keep Sukiyasbashi Jiro’s menu fresh. Jiro readily admits that being disciplined and experienced doesn’t always reap great results. Yoshikazu gives voice to his father’s theory about how ultimately you need to be talented to succeed when he says, “Studying hard doesn’t guarantee you’ll become a good person.”

The fact that Yoshikazu is advocating this philosophy is striking since it had a direct impact on how both he and Takashi, his little brother, were raised by Jiro. Both children were, according to Jiro, only “allowed” to graduate high school. Then they started their ten-year apprenticeship with Jiro at his restaurant. Jiro is the first person to say that he was probably a negligent parent, joking about how a young Takashi, now an adult, would look at his father as a stranger in his own house. But Jiro also actively encouraged Takashi to start his own sushi restaurant in Roppongi Hills. Yoshikazu tells us that, as Jiro’s older child, he will eventually inherit Sukiyabashi Jiro. So when Jiro encourages Takashi to branch out on his own, it’s his way of helping his youngest son to survive. There’s no excessive sentimentality to that decision; you can tell that Jiro respects his son as a peer by the way he tells Gelb’s translator that he felt Takashi was a good enough chef to start his own restaurant.

Every decision that Jiro Ono makes in "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" seems to boil down to a matter of discipline first and then affection. Which is what makes Welb’s approach to filming Jiro and his team at work so disconcerting. The use of numbers like Richter’s “Berlin by Overnight” or “Infra 5” suggest a pronounced melancholy and a hint of turbulence to Ono’s process that Gelb’s footage simply does not support. On the one hand, it’s easy to see why Richter and Glass’ minimalist aesthetic were chosen to score these scenes: as compositions, they’re both structured around the notion that the slightest inflection can change the nature of the seemingly routine. Richter and Glass’ pieces are also sampled in order to reflect Ono’s conflation of his dream job with his hard-and-fast discipline. But the pensive mood of Richter and Glass’ pieces don’t always gel with Gelb’s footage. By film’s end, Gelb hints that there might, in fact, be a reason to think that Ono’s artisanal style of cooking is endangered, namely the global over-consumption of fresh fish.