One of the hardest reservations to get in the world is a seat at Jiro Ono's sushi counter, a three-Michelin-star restaurant adjoining the entrance to the Ginza metro station, in the basement of a business building in Tokyo. A meal there, which consists of twenty pieces of sushi served one at a time, costs thirty thousand Japanese yen (about three hundred and seventy dollars), and lasts about fifteen or twenty minutes. (By contrast, a meal at Noma, probably the toughest get on the list, takes a good three to four hours). There are only ten seats, there is a set menu (no appetizers or modifications), and there are definitely no California rolls.
The question of what makes this hole in the wall so worthy is the subject of a gorgeously shot documentary opening today called "Jiro Dreams of Sushi," directed by David Gelb. Jiro Ono was born in 1925, left home at the age of nine, and has been making sushi ever since. Though Japan has declared him a national treasure, he still says, at the age of eighty-five, "All I want to do is make better sushi." He goes to work every day by getting on the train from the same position, he always tastes his food as he makes it, and he dislikes holidays. Jiro is described as a shokunin—a person who embodies the artisan spirit of the relentless pursuit of perfection through his craft.
Another Japanese term that came to my mind while I watched the film was kaizen, meaning "improvement" or "change for the better." The concept is one of process, and it is often applied in business settings, like manufacturing and logistics, to ensure constant and never-ending improvement. Before cooking his octopus, Jiro used to massage it for up to thirty minutes. Now he will massage it for forty minutes, to give it an even softer texture and a better taste. Before a meal at Sukiyabashi Jiro, guests are handed a hot towel, hand-squeezed by an apprentice. The apprentices, who train for at least ten years under Jiro, are not allowed to cut the fish until they practice just handling it. One of the older apprentices says Jiro taught him to "press the sushi as if it were a baby chick."
Jiro's near-impossible standards extend to the Tsukiji fish market, where his older son, Yoshikazu, bicycles every day to check out the day's catch. He meets with trusted specialists, each of whom has his own focus: shrimp, eel, octopus. In one scene, a man wrestles a live octopus into a plastic bag, but not before the octopus makes a convincing run for it, suctioning itself rather alarmingly up the man's forearm. Jiro's tuna dealer is an anti-establishment character who tolerates only products of the highest quality. At one point, he surveys a warehouse floor covered by giant, gaping tuna, whose gunmetal coloring makes them look like warheads or shrunken submarines. "People say there is good quality here today," he says directly to the camera. Then he adds with a smirk, "There is nothing good here today."
By this point in the movie, it comes as no surprise that Jiro has his own rice dealer, or that his rice alone is revered by foodies for being expertly cooked, fanned, vinegared, and maintained at the perfect temperature. After a screening of the movie at the Japan Society this week, Eric Ripert said, "Never in my life have I tasted rice like that—it's like a cloud." (Ripert, an exacting French chef who travels with his own fish knives in a custom Louis Vuitton case, is a great admirer of Jiro, who reminds him of his own obsessive mentor, Joël Robuchon.) The rice is served at body temperature, because, according to Jiro, each ingredient has an ideal moment of deliciousness—as Ripert put it, "The rice is perfection now." When the sushi is placed in front of a customer, it must be consumed right away; hence, the fleeting nature of the meal.
It wasn't until after the movie was over, when an audience member asked about female sushi chefs, that I realized practically everyone in the film—from the apprentices to the chefs to the fishmongers—is male. During his visits to Japan, Gelb had heard a range of explanations for this, from the claim that women's hands are too warm (they would cook the sushi just by handling it) to the idea that the hours were too long and it wouldn't be safe for them to ride the train alone late at night. "It's sexism, frankly," Gelb said. When asked if he had anything to add on the topic, Ripert wisely answered, "No." The audience seemed only mildly relieved to learn that there is gimmicky sushi bar in another neighborhood of Tokyo with all female chefs.
Jiro has two sons, both sushi chefs—Yoshikazu, the older one, works under his father at Ginza station, and his younger brother, Takashi, runs his own branch of the restaurant, in Roppongi Hills. The layout of the second location is an exact mirror image of the original, since Jiro is left-handed and Takashi is right-handed. As the elder son, Yoshikazu is expected to succeed his father when he dies or loses the physical ability to work. Gelb's own filial dynamic explains at least part of his Japanophilia. His father, Peter, is now the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, but while David was very young Gelb père was the assistant manager of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. At the time, Seiji Ozawa was the conductor, which meant frequent family trips to Japan. It also certainly meant exposure to a great deal of music. Besides being visually captivating—some of the montages are veritable food-porn slide shows of glistening seafood—the film has a strong soundtrack of classical music, old and new. Philip Glass's works appear throughout, and, for the film's ultimate sushi montage, Gelb used Beethoven's soaring Poco sostenuto vivacefrom Symphony No. 7.
At the end of the film, when asked about Yoshikazu's ability to succeed him, Jiro delivers an answer that is equal parts dad and shokunin: "He just needs to keep it up for the rest of his life." Here's hoping Gelb does the same.
Funmi Tofowomo Okelola
-The Art of Living and Impermanence
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