Questions about sushi restaurant
 

Hello all. My name is Andrea from Italy...Im trying to open a sushi restaurant here in sunny south of Italy....can anyone help me with some infos about what you need...quantities of fish etc?...thanks so much!

I renamed your thread and moved it to the proper section. Good luck.

thank you....

You should go to Japan and study if you are serious about it. I plan on opening a Ramen restaurant in the future and will work for free in a Ramenya for a week to learn the basics.

you mean doing a stage at a ramenya? =P

Hehe~just curious. How is Japanese food popular in Italy?

Hello! Very popular! In Milan even Nobu has opened few years ago in partnership with Giorgio Armani. Less popular in the South, but growing.

Andrea

I would think that Nobu draws as much patronage because of its owners and celebrity as it does for sushi itself.

I am assuming that you are already experienced at running another type of restaurant and this is just a shift of cuisine, otherwise there are far more critical issues than just your fish supply.

Hello,
wrong assumption...first time Id be running a restaurant. Run other kind of companies. But please enlight me on all the critical issues you believe I should be aware of. Thanks! Andrea

Wow~sounds very great. I would have thought Japanese food is hot in China and less popular in Europe. You proved that I was wrong. I am a big fan of Japanese food as well as my friends. We love that. I heard some people said that they dislike Japanese food just because the rare or cold stuff makes them sick. I am lucky, I don't have such worries. :D

So let me get this straight;

You have never run a restaurant before,
You've never run a sushi restaurant before
You want to open a sushi restaurant, in a busy italian city, one that is especially noted for it's style and taste, presumably on a 'high-street outlet' basis,
And you've come onto the internet for serious business advice?!

Lady, you are in trouble before you even begin! H

Have you got somewhere to open your restaurant? How are you going to find a qualified chef? Have you eaten sushi before? Are you familiar enough with quality sushi to know if your chefs are any good? Have you been to Japan and tried sushi there? How about market research; is there a big enough niche or a big enough demand in Japan to justify opening a japanese restaurant there?

I think the first critical issue you should address is getting some experience managing a restaurant and THEN experience with the art of sushi.

Your are highly likely to los e your shirt. I spend 2 years as a restaurant kitchen inspector and about 3 as an assistant buyer for a restaurant, along with having managed or co-managed businesses in other fields. The restaurant business is proabably the worst one to ever venture into without a very solid knowledge of at least the back of the house! Do not do this!

The Executive Chef runs the kitchen, but trust me, YOU have to run the EC. Even if they are honest enough not to steal you blind, they can not do it all.

And when you factor in a very precise cuisine using the most perishable ingredient on the planet you are headng for disaster.

I hate to discourage anyone's initative and inspiration when it comes to a business, but I don't want to encourage something that could ruin your life and any future hopes in the restaurant industry. Trust me when I say that if you open this type of restauarant and fail, the failure will follow you forever.

Another, safer option came to mind. If you already have the financing to open a restaurant, why not become an investor in a someone else's sushi restaurant, rather than owning one? It alleviates most of your risk, other than monetary and give you a way to learn more about the industry, as well as sushi restaurant operations.

If you don't have the financing already, I cannot imagine a lender providing it for such a venture when you have no background in it. Financing for restaurants is not easy for anyone, because of an inherently high failure rate.

quantities of fish is probably question 350 on the list of questions you need to answer before going ahead with this.

Do you have a business plan? Who is your market? Is there an unmet demand? What is the competition? What makes your restaurant different or unique? Whay am I going to your restaurant rather than the competition's? Who is going to make the sushi?

I think it is certainly possible and if there is an unmet demand where you live and you have the access to a sushi chef and fresh fish (tuna, yellowtail, salmon, etc) then it is certainly worth a shot.

I appreciate your reply. You would agree though that success is sometimes achieved by those who try (after attent research of course)...I have set up a successful fashion firm in only 2 years after working in banking for 12 years and i didnt have any experience in fashion. I am here to get advice and thank god I am getting it from very nice and experienced people. But I also appreciate your comments, even if they are given looking down on me, as they make me stronger. Thanks anyway.
ps: im not a lady, im a guy and I had the luck of eating the best sushi in Tokyo around the world. A

Thanks anyone for your replies! All of them so usefull.

In terms of how to make a business plan and all the variables to consider when running the business (competition, location, price movements) I can say Im quite solid. What I need is infos about machinery, everything you might know about fish, how to keep it, where to find the best even if Brindisi is on the sea, whether websites like Sushi Fornitori are good sites where to buy ingredients etc. Thanks again everyone. A

Oh gosh, sorry! I forgot Andrea is also a man's name in Italy. We're not really looking down on you; it takes guts to be an entrepreneur, but it is a little worrying that you came here of all places to ask for business advice. It makes people wonder if you're really serious and have thought properly about what you are doing. A lot of restaurants fail, even very well prepared ones so it's an incredibly risky business.

Edit: Oops, you posted again. The trouble with Japanese cuisine is that you're going to need to import a lot of items if you want it to be authentic. Try and find an asian supermarket, or contact brands directly (if you can) to see if you can buy/import directly in bulk. That would probably be cheaper than buying it through a website.

What's your idea for the restaurant, because i've seen a lot of different things calling themselves 'sushi restaurants' and some vary from little more than a sandwich shop-bar and others are very elite.

I am no sushi expert, however I will try to give you information I have learned just from reading. First of all, you of course need chefs who were trained to specialize in sushi. I assume you already know this but I am just making sure! =) Secondly, you need to have a fresh source for your fish. If possible, you should get a location that is near a fish market. The quantity of fish depends on how big the establishment will be.

I suggest reading the book "The Story of Sushi" (formerly titled The Zen of Fish) by Trevor Corson. It is very indepth about the ingredients, how they are made, where they are from, how the sushi is prepared, and there are a few chapters on sushi restaurants and and how sushi started in the U.S.

Don't limit yourself to resources when it comes to sushi. You can find a ton of articles and websites about sushi. This may not be the best place to get your information.

Like I said, I am not expert, but I certainly love sushi! =) I hope your business prospers!

What are you talking about? I plan to make Ramen and will learn the basics of cooking it there. I need to put my money into something for the future. I can't do comedy forever, my hips can't take it.:D

My first suggestion would be to learn how to properly make sushi. To become a sushi chef takes 8-10+ years.

In this day and age I think that number has dropped a bit, especially for chefs outside Japan...but I think at least a couple years of study under an established Japanese chef would be required.

a stage is when you work in a restaurant for free for a day =P
something i learned in the restaurant i work at now xD
haha~
how do you like them culinary jargon?! =OO

a bit? >.>'''
the only 'itamae' now a days are like.... in their 40-70's
>.>"''
anyone younger than that has either done "american" sushi, or only did it as a part-time job =P

most no one these days even know what sushi is....
at least not in america =P

WOW!

You are taking a huge jump!

Did you manage to work out the fish quantity before opening?

That experience will give you good footing in marketing and staffing, but what you are missing is that you are dealing with a highly perishable stock. The damage that bad timing creates in fashion and banking is still somewhat salvageable. With fish, any loss is total loss. You have as short a time frame as in funds transfers that missing will not just be a partial monetary, but total loss to the investment. The only comparable business I know is a fresh florist. You have a limited and sometime unpredictable window to get your stock and then get it out the door. At least with flowers there isn't the risk of people getting sick.

yuujirou, you live in Texas, and until you can speak for all of the US, please don't. Where you live and where I live are very different places.

sooo o.o'
you do know some 20-30 year olds who are fully trained in traditional sushi?

I know a lot of Americans and Asian-Americans and Asians and Japanese that live in America that know quite passionately and in detail "what sushi is".

You don't need to be 40 to know what sushi is.

I don't doubt nor deny that there are some, if not many, out there that would love nothing more than to seek the best sushi possible. There are all kinds of those people for different foods. But, I was speaking more specifically of the fabrication of sushi, and how many "itamae" these days don't respect sushi for what it really is. Either because they treat it as nothing more than a job, or because of limitations set by the owners.
If that many people really knew "what sushi is" then why do we have so many cruddy sushi restaurants? And why are those cruddy ones thriving so well?

The reason why most restaurants suck, is because either the owner doesn't know shit about sushi, and just takes the cheapest route he can to keeping the business open (i can think of a few restaurants like that here), or the itamae just doesn't know what sushi is.

As to why they thrive? Simply because they cater to Americans. And... well.. any cultural food that is altered to cater to the masses of another culture... usually sucks...

Of course, this is all how I percieve things, and yes, it is a generalisation. So if you feel otherwise, please share.

I have never been to Texas, so i don't know how things are there.

However, here in Portland and Seattle and the rest of the Northwest your description applies as a minority. There are cheap sushi restaurants, and nice sushi (and Japanese) restaurants.

I am not going to try and convince you any further. If you have never been to the NW you don't know what there is in the way of sushi. (On the coast, Japan-trained chefs, etc.) then you don't know. San Francisco is awesome, too for sushi.

So again, talk about your city or state, but please don't say "America" when crapping on the American sushi scene.

aish... i don't think you quite got what i was saying....

>.>''
just answer this...
how many 'itamae' do you know... are under 30 years old?
>.>'''
because... all the itamae i know... are from 40-60 years old...
i've never met, nor heard, of a true 'itamae' whose younger than that....

Well, I have easten sushi in several restaurants in Houston, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and several other places along all three U.S. coasts so I have a slightly wider perspective than either of you may have.

From what I have seen the artistic and experienced itamae are almost all at least in their mid 30s and most much older. Whether Yuujiro was referring to this class of professional or all sushi chefs, I cannot say, but his comment hold true with those I would deem professional itamae, as opposed to simply a "head sushi chef". Yes there are dedicated and inspired chef coming up through the ranks, but they are rarely without supervision and I have seen too many of them enduring what he described - limitation by owners or kitchen managers that impair the art for the sake of customer volume, notariety and their ledgers.

MMM is right that the field is considerably better, especially the farther north you go on the west coast. But I have also encountered some of the sloppiest, unimaginative and overly Americanized offerings in more restaurants there than in Texas. My feeling is that because of the volume of patrons and the availability of fish at lower cost, there are more restauranteurs that have opened for business simply for the cash flow the "sushi craze" provides - as in lots of less then discerning patrons filling up tables. Because of the size of the west coast market, there are more mediocre and poor example that are able to survive than in Texas.

Here in Texas the overhead is much higher to operate and the gap between knowledgeable customers and people just wanting to seem trendy is seems to be much wider. As a result, most restaurants that survive more than a year fall into one of two categories. They are (1) extremely good and run by dedicated adn talented itamae so that they attract the limited Japanese clientele available and the American sushi "afficionadoes"; or they are (2)the ones with flashy decor, lots of minimally trained staff focusing on volume production of cheap product, and ever changing attention-getting dishes that have less and less resemblance to sushi and more and more to gastronomic one-ups-manship. For satisfaction I eat #1 (almost exclusively), and for entertainment and curiosity I visit #2.

Some Informations About Sushi
 

Hello, I'm foreigner living in Japan for 12 years. Here are some informations about sushi in Japan, also some photos, taken in sushi-restaurant in Japan :

Closer to Japan > Food

I am not sure what this has to do with what I was saying. All I am saying is don't over-generalize about the sushi scene over the entire country when what you know is Texas.

Here in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, I know of only one Japanese Sushi Chef and one restaurant owned by a Japanese. The rest are owned by other Asians and it tastes like it. There might be other Japanese owners and chefs in the area, but we haven't found them yet.
I agree that food is changed to the tastes of the locals. Mexican food in Japan sucked.