The Grand Japan Tour II

Sugita

I have no idea how many times I have stood in front of Sugita’s door. What I do know is that every time, I feel that same small electricity I felt the first time. At Sugita, time seems to stop.

I feel as if I am in a theatre, watching the precise movements of a Zen master: slicing fish, caressing rice, producing perfect nigiri with his eyes almost closed. Nothing is there by accident. The room is quiet, the gestures exact, and the emotion is never forced. Over the years, Sugita has become one of the counters by which I measure sushi: humility, beauty, discipline, and the privilege of being allowed to sit there. Again and again, it moves me.

Arai

There is something very special about returning to a Tokyo counter for almost a decade and realizing that the restaurant remembers your story too. I started going to Arai nine years ago, only one year after he opened, when he already had two Michelin stars and was being spoken about as Japan’s new sushi wunderkind.

To me, the Arai experience is one of the most intimate, joyful, precise, and simply oishii sushi experiences in Tokyo. It is the kind of place I could visit every week. Arai-san is known for the extraordinary quality of his fish, especially the tuna he sources from Yamayuki, and for those irresistible signature triple chutoro nigiri that somehow make everyone around the counter smile. Today, Arai is one of the defining sushi masters of his generation, but what moves me most is the continuity: the warmth, the memory, and the quiet privilege of still being welcomed back.

Motoyoshi

I began going to Motoyoshi nine years ago, at his old place in Aoyama, and immediately fell in love with this gentle man who always seems to have a smile on his face. Over the years, I slowly understood the depth of his greatness: the infinite creativity, the absolute aesthetic sensitivity, the way he designs everything, from the small cherry garden at the entrance to the chopsticks and ikebana.

Motoyoshi’s tempura is pure. Always made with the season’s top-grade ingredients, many delivered directly by the growers themselves. Nothing is heavy. Everything is precise, light, and deeply delicious. And yet the room is relaxed, warm, full of laughter. Greatness without stiffness. That is Motoyoshi.

Maeda

Maeda is one of the great Kyoto restaurants of our time: a kaiseki-kappo counter that was awarded three Michelin stars and then, like quite a few serious Japanese shokunin, decided to give them back and continue on its own path. But unlike many kaiseki places, which can feel very serious and take a long time to unfold, Maeda is relaxed, generous, and full of bold flavors.

The atmosphere is helped, of course, by the ever-flowing sake we always seem to enjoy with Maeda-san and his two chefs. For this tour, we return twice: one night for the almost impossible three-star izakaya night, born from Maeda-san’s own idea, and one night for the full seasonal Maeda experience.

Toyosu Fish Market

Toyosu is not just a fish market. It is a microcosm of Japan: precision, hierarchy, speed, silence, trust, obsession, and the invisible relationships that decide what ends up on the greatest counters in the country. To walk through Toyosu properly is to understand that Japanese food begins long before the restaurant. It begins with judgment: eyes, hands, timing, season, reputation, and people who have spent their lives learning what most of us will never see.

And at the center of that world stands Yamaguchi-san, my friend, the King of Tuna and head of Yamayuki, the most important and revered tuna company in the market. When Japan’s greatest sushi chefs serve tuna, very often the story passed through his hands first.

On any morning, walking through Toyosu’s corridors, you meet many of Japan’s great chefs. Not because they have to wake up early and be there. Because they want to. Toyosu is where relationships are kept alive: small talk, friendships, trust, the social fabric behind the food. That is why it matters.