“When I first came here, the local fish weren’t ready to be used for sushi,” remembers chef Shiro Kashiba — the chef and owner of Seattle’s Sushi Kashiba. “So I started looking for local seafood that I could use.”
This led Kashiba to squid, smelt, and geoduck — a clam local to the Puget Sound that’s highly sought after by sushi chefs. Amazed by these newly discovered ingredients, Kashiba knew he wanted to focus on the Edomae style of sushi, the traditional Japanese method dating to the 1820s, focusing on fresh fish on top of vinegar rice.
Kashiba, who credits everything he knows about sushi to famed sushi chef Jiro Ono, never thought about becoming a sushi chef when he was younger. “But when I came to love making sushi, going abroad became a dream of mine,” he says. “Luckily my dream was fulfilled.”
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