MY GUESTS’ LAUGHTER IS THE BEST BACKGROUND MUSIC
I wanted my guests to feel relaxed, enjoy their food, and fill Matsuhisa with their laughter. For this reason, I deliberately didn’t use any background music. For me, the laughter of my guests was the best BGM.
Matsuhisa was small, and therefore it was always buzzing with noise. In addition to talking with the guests at the counter, I also greeted the guests at the tables, served their food, and explained the content. In this way, we became friends. I really enjoyed explaining to them such things as how to eat edamame.
When I first started, it was very unusual for the chef to come out of the kitchen and talk to his clientele. But there was one chef in America who was doing this. His name was Wolfgang Puck, and he launched a new genre of cooking that came to be known as California cuisine. He was the same age as me. He would come out of the kitchen and walk among the tables to speak directly with his guests, explain the food, and joke with them. His restaurant was near Hollywood, too, and was well loved by celebrities. I’m sure that many people came just because they wanted to see him.
Puck has been a major influence on me, even though my field is Japanese cuisine. His approach gave me the courage to apply in Los Angeles what we did at Matsuei-sushi in Shinjuku. We’re still good friends and do things like joint charity events together. Now there are guests who come to Matsuhisa specifically to see me. When one of these regulars calls to make a reservation, the receptionist tells them, “Nobu will be here then.” That person will then pass on the word to others, and soon that day is totally booked.
THE KEY TO GOOD SERVICE IS TO ANTICIPATE YOUR GUESTS’ NEEDS
I think a sushi restaurant needs an element of entertainment. A good sushi chef requires not just superior sushi making skills, but also attentiveness and the ability to make customers comfortable. Conversing with the chef is one of the attractions of a sushi counter.
I don’t just make sushi. I talk with the guest in front of me and imagine what I might want if I were him or her. I also think about the best timing to serve each dish. Pacing is important. When I see signs that a guest is wondering what to order next, I might say to them, “If you liked that, you might enjoy this topping that we have in today. Would you like to try it?” That’s the kind of attentiveness demanded of a sushi chef and the mark of a professional.
Around the time that Matsuhisa became popular, chairs were placed outside for people waiting in line.
It was Mr. Akiyama who taught me true consideration for others. I was still an apprentice at Matsuei-sushi, and he not only came to our restaurant, but also took me many places on my days off. Knowing that I had no money, he treated me to many different dishes so that I could gain experience. He was knowledgeable not only about his own field of interior design, but also about paintings and antiques, and he willingly explained whenever I asked him a question. Despite being a prominent and highly successful designer, he went out of his way to please a lowly apprentice like me. This thoughtfulness made me very happy.
I observed Mr. Akiyama’s behavior from close quarters. When getting on an elevator, he quite naturally allowed women to go first. If someone’s glass was empty, he would fill it. When sashimi was served, he would pour soy sauce into each person’s dish, not just his own. He always paid attention to what went on around him and would be the first to do something for another person. He seemed to have a sense of what would make others happy. Because I longed to be like him, I think that his behavior rubbed off on me without me even realizing it.
Matsuhisa is the result of my own pursuit of the thought, What would I want if I were this person? Some of my guests who have been to Nobu New York or Nobu London tell me that Matsuhisa is still the best. There’s a sense of coming home that they don’t experience anywhere else.
This is true for me, too. Whenever I return to Matsuhisa, I feel a sense of relief that I don’t feel at any Nobu restaurant. I raised Matsuhisa up from zero, including the menu, the approach to service, and the staff. It looks almost the same as when it first opened, and I have complete confidence in the flavor of every sauce and dressing. Although Nobu may have spread around the world, Matsuhisa will always be my starting point. My roots are Matsuhisa, and because it exists, I can always stay on track.
A TUNA BOUGHT ON IMPULSE INSPIRES NEW SIGNATURE DISHES
As the sole owner of Matsuhisa, I’m free to stock it with whatever I like. When I see something really good, I can almost hear it say, “Please! Buy me,” and I can’t resist. That’s my nature.
One day at the fish market, a tuna stared me straight in the eye. It seemed to be begging me to buy it. Paying no attention to the price, I made it mine. But if the whole tuna was made into sushi, it would have fed several hundred people. And even then, I still couldn’t have used it all for sashimi or sushi. I had to think of some other ways. Wondering what would happen if I grilled it, I took a piece of toro and cooked it like a steak. Guests who tried it were amazed by the rich, buttery flavor and exclaimed that it was like wagyu beef. This was the birth of the Toro Steak. Although this dish is quite common now, at that time it was totally unorthodox.
My impulse purchase was also the inspiration for Sashimi Salad. Americans are quite health-conscious, and often have salad for lunch. I added some slices of seared tuna to a salad, drizzled it with soy sauce–based dressing, and called it Sashimi Salad with Matsuhisa Dressing. It was a great hit. Because sashimi is raw fish, many Americans felt a little wary of trying it. Adding the words “salad” and “dressing” made the dish sound more familiar. The Matsuhisa dressing I developed for this dish is now used at all Nobu restaurants worldwide.
That tuna cost me a fair bit, but because I went ahead and bought it without worrying about the price, several signature Nobu dishes were born. I definitely made my money back. The way that tuna urged me to buy it reminds me of the dog in the Japanese folktale “Hanasaka Jiisan” that barked at his master to make him dig. Thanks to his dog, the master struck gold.
IMPORTING RAW FISH FROM JAPAN
If you buy the best ingredients and cook them properly, your guests will always be satisfied. Because I loved to see my guests happy, I bought the best ingredients without begrudging the price. No longer content to serve just the kinds of fish available in America, I began importing fish directly from Japan with the cooperation of Minoru Yokoshima of International Marine Products.
I had another reason for doing this. I wanted to teach the young chefs assisting me at the sushi counter the skills common to sushi bars in Japan. Japanese customers who came to Matsuhisa would often ask the chefs where they learned to make sushi. They would reply rather reluctantly, “In Los Angeles.” I felt sorry for them. Because I had learned how to make sushi in Japan, I knew how to dress many different kinds of fish. I wanted to teach them the skills I had learned in the land of sushi by using fish procured there. Then my staff could say with pride that they had learned at Matsuhisa.
As the Japanese saying goes, however, the child does not know the mind of the parent. One day I found a sayori (needlefish) in the garbage. A very thin fish, it’s hard to fillet and also has a short shelf life. It looked like someone had attempted but failed to fillet it properly and had thrown it away. I reprimanded the chefs quite harshly. “I had this imported for you especially from Japan. Why did you throw it away?! You could at least have thought up ways to cook it!”
To be honest, it’s much easier to be a sushi chef on one’s own. But I think you can only be considered a full-fledged chef once you can pass on the skills you’ve learned from others to up-and-coming chefs. Only when an apprentice finally reaches your level can you call yourself a master. Once I had taught them how, my employees could fillet kohada (gizzard shad), prepare conger eel, and do many other tasks. This, in turn, took some of the load off me and let me focus on the work I needed to do.
Alone, I could only do the work of one person, but with three or four others, I found that together we could do the work of five or six. It wa
s at this point that I realized the importance of training. It takes time to teach others. If we only consider the work we need to do that particular day, it would be far faster to do it ourselves. But if we don’t teach others and cultivate their skills, we’ll never have time to do the work we really want to do. This is another of the lessons I learned during this period through repeated trial and error. Many of those I trained now run their own sushi restaurants.
LABOR COSTS ARE CHEAP IF YOU EMPLOY PEOPLE WHO ARE MOTIVATED
As Matsuhisa became increasingly popular, young chefs began coming to us looking for work. If they were highly motivated, I wanted to hire them even if we already had enough staff. Of course, from the perspective of labor costs, this was a waste.
Chefs from other restaurants would give me tips about the people I was interviewing, saying that so-and-so wouldn’t last or was a bad character or even telling me that I would be better off not hiring someone. But I felt it was unfair not to give people a second chance because I, too, had failed many times. If they were applying to Matsuhisa because they wanted to start over or learn from scratch under me, then I wanted to give them a chance. After all, I had been given so many chances myself.
Those who were motivated learned quickly and soon became effective members of our team. As a result, our customer volume increased. That alone made it a worthwhile investment. And that was not all. Being surrounded by motivated young people sparked my competitive spirit. Not wanting to be beaten at my own game, I developed a friendly rivalry with my apprentices. Sometimes I vied with the younger chefs to see who could please the guests most with our omakase dinner. This increased the energy and vibrancy of the restaurant, attracting even more customers.
Matsuhisa took up half the building. The restaurant that occupied the other half failed to catch on, and the space frequently changed hands. We always had such a long line outside that one of my guests suggested that I might as well rent the whole building. But I didn’t even consider this idea. While the extra space would mean that we could accommodate and please even more guests, for me, the thirty-eight-seat Matsuhisa seemed perfect. I did not have any ambition to expand it into a larger restaurant. In the end, however, the building’s owner came to me himself and asked me to rent the rest of the space, and, in 1990, that’s what I did.
GOOD INGREDIENTS COME FIRST, PROFIT, LATER
I left all the accounting up to my wife. She handled everything, including paying for the ingredients, the rent, and the wages, and managing the restaurant’s profits. Thanks to her, I could focus solely on cooking. Without worrying about profit and loss, I could devote myself to my work just for the sake of seeing the delight on my guests’ faces. Looking back on it, I realize that this was a very good thing. If I had been balancing the books while doing the cooking, I might never have come up with some of my bolder, more daring dishes. Yoko still tells me, “You had it easy. You got to see the smiles on your guests’ faces. It was really hard trying to pay the bills, you know.”
In Peru, Argentina, and Alaska, Yoko had never uttered a word of complaint. But not long after Matsuhisa opened, she told me, “At this rate, we won’t be able to save any money.” This was just around the time that I began importing fish from Japan. Business was booming, but the high cost of ingredients meant that there was nothing left after paying the monthly bills. In fact, for about two years, we made no profit at all, even though the restaurant was always full.
Still, I told her, “We’re able to pay all the bills. We’re even paying back our loans little by little. Isn’t that enough? Please don’t say things like that again.” That was the last time she ever said anything to me about purchasing for the restaurant.
When a guest sits down at a sushi counter, he or she will ask, “What have you got today?” As an artisan, the sushi chef takes pride in giving them something that so exceeds their expectations, it surprises them. That is why I gave priority to satisfying my guests before sales or profits. As a result, these guests couldn’t wait to tell their friends. “The other night,” they would say, “I ate this amazing dish at a place called Matsuhisa.” The number of guests continued to increase, and we became known for delivering more than expected. Many of our regulars would ask, “Do you have anything new today?” And I took pleasure in confidently recommending what we had in stock. That is how Matsuhisa came to flourish.
Because I bought good ingredients, I wanted to use them up without wasting anything. Thinking about how to do this inspired new ideas, such as a tartar sauce made by chopping up fish parts not used in sashimi or sushi. The repetition of this process has led to the birth of many new dishes. I wasn’t trying to get attention for being original. It was just a natural consequence of experimenting with ways to use up every last scrap and prevent waste.
Much later I talked with Yoko about this. “It’s because I didn’t have to cut costs for ingredients that we could achieve so much,” I said, and I know she understood. I think putting our guests’ satisfaction first is crucial. As long as we do that, results will always follow.
LEARNING THE IMPORTANCE OF PRAISE
I think that by coming to America I finally grew up. During my apprenticeship in Japan, I was rapped with the dull edge of a knife if I made a mistake, and the senior staff were sometimes quite mean to me. I learned many things in Peru, Argentina, and Alaska, but I suffered some severe setbacks, too. After I went to Los Angeles, however, things changed. The difference was that everyone praised me.
Americans are good at praising people. When I served them good food, they’d exclaim, “This is fabulous!” and “You’re a genius!” It was a bit over the top, yet I couldn’t help but get caught up in the spirit of it. Hear that? I would say to myself. You’re a genius! Although I felt slightly embarrassed, I didn’t mind at all. In fact, it made me want to try even harder. America is where I learned how important praise is for motivating people to improve.
In Japan, there is a strong tendency to point out people’s faults. The Japanese even have a saying: “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.” If I had stayed in Japan and been faced with constant criticism as I tried to create new dishes, I might have given up before even coming close to where I am now and decided to just cook the things I was taught. The world of Japanese craftsmen, including sushi chefs, is generally governed by a strict hierarchy of relationships, but personally I do much better when someone quietly helps me to recognize my mistakes instead of harping on them. While I was working at Matsuei-sushi in Shinjuku, a younger guy from my hometown also began working there. I could have bossed him around, just as the older staff had done to me, but I found it far more enjoyable to be friendly with him than to give him a hard time.
Besides, I had the example of Mr. Akiyama, to whom I owe so much. One of our best guests, he never treated young people with contempt and was kind enough to respond to all my questions. The owner of Matsuei-sushi, too, was a mature man who willingly taught me whatever I asked. Overseas, I saw training approaches that worked fine even though they differed from the system in Japan. Although when I was young I sometimes yelled at the junior staff, my experience overseas taught me that there is no need to do so.
Speaking of being good at praising, my wife, Yoko, is, too. Although I put her through a lot of hardship, she always supported me without complaint. When we talk about those difficulties now, it’s clear that she believed I would overcome them all. It’s thanks to her, too, that I was able to keep doing my best.
MEDIA ATTENTION ATTRACTS CELEBRITIES
About half a year after Matsuhisa opened, it was featured in the Los Angeles Times and LA Weekly, and the number of guests doubled. We were all overjoyed to see the restaurant covered in these newspapers. The first time it happened, I went out and bought ten copies. The restaurant became so popular it was hard to get a reservation. Although we were run off our feet, for me every day was so much fun that I couldn’t get enough.
With my wife, Yoko, at the opening party of Nobu San Diego. (Photo by Steven Freema
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Two years later I was chosen by Food & Wine magazine as one of America’s ten best new chefs, and in 1993, the New York Times selected Matsuhisa as one of the top ten restaurant destinations in the world. The only restaurant chosen from Japan was Kitcho in Kyoto. This pleased me greatly because, compared to Matsuhisa, which had only opened a few years earlier, Kitcho had a very long tradition.
Shortly after that, we received a reservation for two from someone who had seen us in the New York Times. On the day they were scheduled to come, a limousine pulled up in front of Matsuhisa, and out stepped a man in a tuxedo and a woman in a formal evening gown. There are only about fifteen centimeters between the tables in Matsuhisa, and at the time, the tablecloths were covered in plastic. The couple gazed at them perplexed, no doubt wondering if they had come to the right place. I greeted them and asked my usual questions about whether there was anything they didn’t like. Then I began serving them the Chef’s Omakase, making dishes based on my observations of their reactions. I still remember how happy they looked when they left.
A writer who produced a widely read newsletter happened to become one of our regulars. Thanks to our location in Hollywood, when he wrote us up, many movie stars and celebrities began coming. Even Tom Cruise called to make a reservation, but I had to say no because we were full. Matsuhisa was small, seating only thirty-eight people, so if the counter and tables were already reserved by others, I had no choice but to turn down requests for new reservations, even from an up-and-coming Hollywood star. Later, I got a call from Mike Ovitz, an influential Hollywood agent who was already a familiar face at Matsuhisa. “You shouldn’t turn down Tom Cruise,” he scolded me. Tom Cruise came on another day and, when I apologized to him in person, he gave me a friendly greeting.
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