Butchering fish in a Tokyo market isn’t a typical career move for a sushi chef who has worked at high-end restaurants in Los Angeles and New York. But returning to Japan to spend four years breaking down fish in the Tsukiji fish market was a deliberate decision for chef Joji Nonaka.
“I was able to learn about the best seasons for fish, how to judge them, how to handle them,” he said about his stint several years ago in one of the world’s most famous fish markets.
Afterward, when he came back across the Pacific, he landed in the Bay Area. First, he worked at ISHI in San Francisco, before joining Chikara Ono’s teams at Delage in Oakland and then Utzutzu in Alameda. Now, along with hospitality veteran Anna Osawa, Nonaka is putting his expertise to work in a tiny new eight-seat omakase sushi bar on a busy stretch of Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Oakland that opened Dec. 13. The entire place is run by a small but mighty team of two. Nonaka is the sushi chef. Osawa makes the desserts and curates the beverages for a one-and-a-half-hour $195 experience while also handling back-of-house operations.
Their main fish supplier is famed Japanese fish concierge Hiroshi Hasegawa. Known for providing unusual fish rarely sold commercially, Hasegawa sometimes free dives to catch the fish himself. Sushi Salon is currently the only restaurant in the United States that he supplies.
Sushi Salon: Open Tuesday through Saturday with seatings at 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.; 4008 Martin Luther King Jr Way, Oakland; Reservations available at Resy; sushi-salon.com
Hasegawa’s offerings follow the seasons for the best flavor. He uses an ancient technique called Shinkei Jime, in which a wire is used to sever the fish’s spinal cord, preventing the production of lactic acid and cortisol to delay rigor mortis and preserve the flavor and texture.
Diners at Sushi Salon can expect rare offerings like cherry salmon, sea robin and golden king crab on the menu.
“In most sushi restaurants, it’s always the same (kinds of) fish, but not ours,” said Nonaka. “Even in Japan, not many people know about these kinds of fish.”
Working with such unusual fish requires deep expertise from a sushi chef. Nonaka points to snake mackerel – which both he and Osawa highlight as a personal favorite – as an example.
“It has so many bones and not much meat, but the taste is very good,” he said, noting that such fish take much more time to make into sushi. The duo never knows what fish they will receive from Hasegawa.
“Every box is a surprise,” said Osawa.
Their commitment to sourcing extends far beyond the fish. Their vinegar supplier, Iio Jozo, is the only maker in Japan that cultivates and uses their own organic rice and makes every batch of vinegar in-house. Osawa describes the flavor as deeper and richer than other vinegars. The same careful selection process went into their soy sauce – it comes from Horikawaya Nomura, a soy and miso maker in Japan that uses a centuries-old woodfired technique. “Once you taste it, you can’t ever go back (to other soy sauce),” said Nonaka, laughing.
The duo didn’t need to change much in their new spot, a former coffee shop. A crisp black-and-white interior provides a perfect foil for their tightly curated omakase menu, which can include up to 18 courses, depending on the night. The small, unassuming space and the unwavering commitment to ingredients evoke Sukiyabashi Jiro, the 10-seat sushi bar inside a Tokyo subway station helmed by chef Jiro Ono, who was the subject of a documentary film and received both Michelin stars and international acclaim.
Nonaka and Osawa initially met while working together at Utzutzu in Alameda, he as a sushi chef, she as a cook and server. They hadn’t originally planned to launch their own endeavor, but when restaurants began reopening after the pandemic, Nonaka realized that he was ready to spread his culinary wings.
“Joji really loves to make sushi,” Osawa said. “And he really wanted to share his craft with the community.”
Sushi Salon began life in 2021 as a pop-up that the pair piloted at Fish & Bird Izakaya in Berkeley, earning rave reviews and a cult following. But they craved their own restaurant space where they could have creative freedom and the ability to curate every aspect of the experience. “Here, I can control the fish, the quality,” said Nonaka.
“I feel like we can do anything we want now,” adds Osawa. “We can serve our favorite sake to customers and use the plates we like. I can try out new desserts.”
A trip to Japan this past April to meet their suppliers reinforced the pair’s mission.
“The trip inspired us to preserve Japanese methods and support our food culture,” said Osawa. “Like our soy sauce. They have 300 years of history making this soy sauce.”
And that, in a nutshell, is what Sushi Salon is all about. “For me, this is quiet luxury,” said Nonaka, as he gestures at the tiny space’s simple white tile walls and unadorned counter. “When you come here, you are experiencing something simple and of the highest quality that also keeps these food traditions alive.”
