Akazu (Red Vinegar) and the Secret of Sushi Rice
Chapter 18: Why Successful CEOs Open Sushi Bars
A Curious Tokyo Pattern
In Tokyo, there is a curious pattern you hear about again and again. When a CEO becomes truly successful, he doesn’t always buy a yacht or a sports car. He opens… a sushi bar.
It doesn’t matter whether his main business is IT, recruiting, or e-commerce. Somehow, CEO life and sushi counters seem to go hand in hand.
Why? Because in Japan, high-end sushi restaurants are the perfect stage for business dinners.
The Counter as a Negotiation Table
For most Japanese people, a luxury sushi counter is a special space, far removed from everyday life.
You sit at the counter. The chef stands right in front of you, watching over you—but never intruding. He pays close attention to your pace, your reactions, your preferences. At the same time, he keeps just enough distance that you can talk business freely.
Deals are discussed between pieces of toro. The counter becomes both a dining table and a negotiation table.
From Regular Customer to Owner
If you keep using sushi bars for important meetings, sooner or later a thought arises: “What if I had my own sushi place?”
So some CEOs do exactly that. They sign a lease, build a small, stylish restaurant, hire a skilled sushi chef, and turn it into their personal base for meetings and celebrations—a place where they can host clients and partners.
It was in one of those CEO-owned sushi bars in Aoyama that I first met the sushi chef who would change the way I think about sushi: Mr. O.
Chapter 19: Meeting Mr. O
A Life Split in Two
At that time, my life was split in two. On weekdays, I was still racing around Tokyo as a food photographer, shooting for restaurants trying to survive the pandemic. On Saturdays, I was a student again—standing at the cutting board at Tokyo Sushi Academy, learning how to hold a knife, slice fish, and shape rice.
A Photo Shoot in Aoyama
One day, I received a photography assignment at a new sushi restaurant in Aoyama. It was exactly the kind of place I just described: a small, stylish sushi bar opened by a successful CEO, with a single counter and a quiet, focused atmosphere.
When I walked in with my camera bag, I noticed the chef behind the counter immediately. He had the calm presence of someone who had repeated the same movements thousands upon thousands of times. No wasted motion. No unnecessary words.
This was Mr. O.
The Real-World Version of Everything I Was Learning
While I set up my lights and tested angles, I watched him work—the way he lifted the lid of the rice tub, the way he loosened the shari with a shamoji, the way he checked the shine of the fish with a quick, practiced glance.
Tokyo Sushi Academy had given me a strong foundation. But watching Mr. O was like seeing the real-world version of everything I was learning.
Between shots, we started to talk. At first, it was simple: “How would you like me to arrange the nigiri?” “Could you slice this a little thinner for the photo?” But slowly, the conversation went deeper.
When the shoot ended, I packed my gear and left. But something stayed with me.
Chapter 20: Life as a Regular
Coming Back as a Customer
So I went back—this time not as a photographer, but simply as a customer, sitting quietly at the counter.
I ordered a drink, watched him move, and asked small questions. He answered every one of them with a kind of gentle precision. I was just one guest among many, yet Mr. O never made me feel like I was bothering him. He seemed genuinely happy to talk about his craft across the counter: the way he cooked rice, the timing of service, the balance of a course.
He told me about his life as a sushi chef—how long he had worked, how the industry had changed, and what it was like to stand behind a CEO-owned counter every night.
The Joy of Having “Your” Sushi Counter
That’s when I realized one of the true joys of having a regular sushi place. It’s not just about eating good sushi. It’s about building a relationship with the person who makes it—a slow, steady conversation that continues every time you sit down in front of them.
For me, that counter in Aoyama became exactly that kind of place. A little refuge where I could eat, watch, ask, and learn.
Chapter 21: The Story of Akazu
Questions Only a Regular Can Ask
Of all the things I learned from Mr. O, the most important was about something that never appears on the plate by itself: sushi rice.
At the academy, we had already learned the basics—how to mix vinegar, sugar, and salt, how to cool the rice, how to reach a good balance. But sitting at the counter as a regular, I could ask him the kind of questions you only ask when you feel comfortable:
“Which brand of vinegar do you use?”
“Do you adjust the vinegar for fatty fish?”
“What happens if you add just a little more sugar?”
He answered each question patiently.
What Is Akazu?
The biggest lesson I learned from him was all about akazu, or red vinegar. When you use red vinegar, sushi rice takes on a slightly darker color instead of pure white.
One night, he told me about the vinegar he used in his restaurant. He even told me the brand name. That surprised me, because I had always believed such recipes had to be kept secret.
Akazu is made by fermenting sake lees—the pressed rice solids left over after brewing sake. Because it is born from rice, it naturally pairs well with rice-based sushi. In the old days of Tokyo, akazu was the standard for sushi.
“But,” he continued, “history is never a straight line.”
The Yellowed Rice Incident
He told me about the “yellowed rice incident” from decades ago.
After World War II, Japan had to import rice from overseas because of poor harvests and supply problems. Some of that imported rice turned out to be contaminated with mold, and it became a major food scandal. People grew terrified of anything that looked even slightly off-white. In their minds, yellowish rice meant danger.
After that, many sushi restaurants worried that customers would suspect them of using moldy rice if their sushi rice wasn’t perfectly white. Because akazu gives sushi rice a brownish tint, many restaurants quietly stopped using it. For a long time afterward, white vinegar became the norm, and akazu slipped into the background.
The Return of Red Vinegar
“Time passes,” Mr. O said. “People forget—even their own fears.”
Roughly seventy years went by. The scandal faded from public memory. And in Tokyo, a new wave of “back to tradition” thinking began to rise. Chefs started to look back at the roots of authentic sushi. They rediscovered akazu—not as something suspicious, but as a symbol of heritage and depth.
According to some critics, around ten percent of Tokyo’s roughly three thousand sushi restaurants now use akazu-based rice again.
Tradition, Flavor, and Price
There was also a practical side. Akazu takes more time and effort to produce than regular white vinegar, which naturally makes it more expensive. For high-end sushi restaurants, this became a meaningful advantage:
- It gave them a way to connect with tradition.
- It allowed them to create a more complex, grown-up flavor in their rice.
- And it offered a logical reason to price their sushi at a premium.
Listening to Mr. O across the counter, I realized that what he was teaching me wasn’t just rice trivia. He was showing me how history, culture, economics, and flavor all meet in a single bite of nigiri.
Akazu wasn’t just a seasoning. It was a story—about Edo, about fear, about forgetting, and about returning.
Chapter 22: What Mr. O Gave My Class
The Craftsman Behind the Counter
On the surface, you might see a glamorous CEO-owned restaurant with a beautiful interior and a stylish logo. But behind the counter, there is always a craftsman like Mr. O, carrying decades of experience in his hands—choosing something like akazu not just for its taste, but for what it means.
Tools, Theory, and Nuance
Tokyo Sushi Academy gave me tools and theory. Becoming a regular at Mr. O’s counter gave me nuance, depth, and respect—and a real education in the history and culture of sushi.
Later, when I began designing my own sushi class, I kept coming back to what I had seen and heard there:
- The importance of rice, not just fish.
- The invisible labor and history behind each “simple” piece of nigiri.
- The way a counter becomes a place of conversation, not just consumption.
- And the quiet joy of being more than a guest—of being part of an ongoing dialogue between chef and customer.
Small, Personal, Rooted in History
That’s why, in my own class, I don’t just teach people how to shape nigiri. I tell them about akazu. About how rice can carry stories. About how a small change in vinegar connects them to two hundred years of sushi tradition.
In that sense, my time with Mr. O didn’t just upgrade my technique. It quietly shaped the future of my sushi class: small, personal, and rooted in history.
And it is built around the same thing that made that Aoyama counter so special to me—a strip of wood between us, rice seasoned with red vinegar, and a story that travels from one pair of hands to another.