The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, they say. But in the world of sushi, it appears there may be a few rotten ones.
If that sounds dramatic, one only has to look at the statement sent out last month by Global Link Retail Management on behalf of Sushi Saito, the once three-Michelin-star Edomae sushi restaurant that has an outpost in Hong Kong. (The Michelin Guide revoked the stars for the Tokyo original in 2019 after the restaurant changed its reservations system to become referral only, thereby excluding the general public from booking.)
It starts off by opaquely referring to a fair bit of tongue wagging going around about the restaurant. “Recently, the origins of ‘Sushi Saito’ has been a widely discussed topic by many people,” reads the introduction to the one-page statement.
After a few lines extolling the virtues of founder Takashi Saito and his campaign to promote Edomae-style sushi – commonly made with marinated and cured fish as opposed to raw fish – around the world, it gets serious.
“However, various persons have been misusing the ‘Sushi Saito’ brand, which has caused Mr Takashi Saito great distress.”
It appears that the great name of Saito has been besmirched by those who wish to bask in the afterglow of his reputation – the culinary equivalent of a disingenuous name-drop, a technique well worn by your average social climber.
In the food world, such dubious practices are widespread, particularly when it comes to marketing and media – take a young, up-and-coming chef whom no one knows, or someone who just isn’t all that talented (but just paid you a big fat sum to get them onto the world’s various best restaurants lists), and include in their promotional material that they worked for so-and-so once at big-name restaurant A, B or C; and wait.
Never mind the fact that they only spent a few days interning there before deciding they didn’t want to peel potatoes or pod peas any more, or that the closest they ever got to touching a chef’s knife was in the dishwashing department.
Fortunately for chefs like these, many food journalists these days don’t care to do their due diligence, meaning their cheffy upstart may quickly climb out of the valley of obscurity and into many a column, extolling them as the great disciple of master X, Y or Z.
There are endless family trees that chart the often nepotistic brotherhood of some of the biggest chefs in the business, that have all sprung from a few mighty greats.
We’re talking the culinary descendants of French fathers of gastronomy, of course – Joël Robuchon, Alain Ducasse, Pierre Koffmann among them – as well as the endless parade of stagiaires who have been through the churn of culinary temples such as Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck, Ferran Adrià’s El Bulli and René Redzepi’s Noma.The DNA of Sushi Saito, however, is one that is now fiercely protected.
The bulk of the statement is given over to a list of eight restaurants around the world that can claim to be part of the exclusive group.
Moreover, the list includes names of the chefs in charge at each who have “completed the technical skill training and possess the virtues recognised by Mr Takashi Saito”.
Among them are Tokyo restaurants Sushi Shunji, Sushi Tsubomi and 3110NZ By LDH Kitchen, the last of which is run by Ikuya Kobayashi, who previously headed Sushi Saito in Hong Kong.
Masashi Kubota now heads the Hong Kong branch, after leaving Taka by Sushi Saito at The St Regis Kuala Lumpur (the restaurant has since been renamed Taka, with all mentions of Saito scrubbed from the hotel’s website).
In addition, Shion Uino, who worked in Sushi Saito in Tokyo for eight years before moving to New York to open his own sushi-ya, is listed as an independent operator who “does not directly belong to the Sushi Saito group but is approved by Mr Takashi Saito as a qualified sushi professional”.
Uino now runs the popular Shion 69 Leonard Street restaurant in the Big Apple’s Tribeca district.
“We want to take this opportunity to clarify that apart from the above-mentioned chefs, any person who claims to have worked at any restaurant belonging to the ‘Sushi Saito’ group or has worked under Mr Takashi Saito for only a short period of time does not represent that Mr Takashi Saito has approved of his technical skill or that he has completed his training,” the notice continues. “We are not affiliated with such persons in any way and we will not offer them any support.”
And so there you have it: the line has been drawn, as cleanly as forged Japanese steel gliding effortlessly through fish.
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