Japan’s sushi legend turns 100 and is not ready to retire

Japanese sushi legend Jiro Ono won three Michelin stars for more than a decade, the world’s oldest head chef to do so. He has served the world’s dignitaries and his art of sushi was featured in an award-winning film. After all these achievements and at the age of 100, he is not ready to fully retire. “I plan to keep going for about five more years,” Ono said last month as he marked Japan’s “Respect for the Aged Day” with a gift and a certificate ahead of his birthday.

What’s the secret of his health? “To work,” Ono replied to the question by Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike, who congratulated him. “I can no longer come to the restaurant every day ... but even at 100, I try to work if possible. I believe the best medicine is to work.”

Ono, the founder of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a tiny, 10-seat sushi bar in the basement of a building in Tokyo’s posh Ginza district, turned 100 on Monday. In one of the world’s fastest-ageing countries, he is now among Japan’s nearly 100,000 centenarians, according to government statistics.

Born in the central Japanese city of Hamamatsu in 1925, Ono began his apprenticeship at age 7 at the Japanese restaurant of a local inn. He moved to Tokyo and became a sushi chef at 25 and opened his own restaurant — Sukiyabashi Jiro — 15 years later in 1965. He has devoted his life seeking perfection in making sushi. “I haven’t reached perfection yet,” Ono, then 85, said in “Jiro Dreams of Sushi,” a film released in 2012. “I’ll continue to climb trying to reach the top but nobody knows where the top is.”

Director David Gelb said his impression of Ono was “of a teacher and a fatherly figure to all who were in his restaurant.”

At the beginning, Gelb felt intimidated by the “gravitas” of the legend but was soon disarmed by Ono’s sense of humour and kindness, he said in an interview from New Orleans. “He’s very funny and very sweet.”

“I was filming an octopus being massaged for an hour, and he was worried about me,” Gelb recalled. Ono told him he was afraid the director was making the most boring film ever and that he could leave if he wanted to. “He was so generous and kind of humble of him to do that,” Gelb said. “Of course I was determined, and I was like, no way ... Massaging the octopus to me is fascinating.”

Ono is devoted to what he serves to his regular clients, even turning down the Japanese government when it called to make a reservation for then-US President Barack Obama and former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2014. “I said no as the restaurant was fully booked, then they agreed to come later in the evening,” Ono recalled. “But (Obama) was enjoying sushi and I was happy.” Ono’s son Yoshikazu, who has worked with his father and now serves as head chef at the Ginza restaurant, said Obama smiled and winked at them when he tried medium fatty tuna sushi.

His restaurant earned three Michelin stars in 2007, as he became the first sushi chef to do so, and has kept the status until 2019, when he was recognized by the Guinness World Records as the oldest head chef of a three-Michelin-star restaurant, at age 93 years and 128 days.

In 2020, Sukiyabashi Jiro was dropped from the guide because it started taking reservations only from regulars or through top hotels.

In recent years Ono serves sushi only to his special guests, “as my hands don’t work so well.” But he hasn’t given up. His son says Ono, watching television news about the death of Japan’s oldest male at 113, said 13 more years seems doable. “I will aim for 114,” Ono said.

“I cherish my life so I get to work for a long time,” Ono says. He doesn’t drink alcohol, takes a walk regularly and eats well. Asked about his favourite sushi, Ono instantly replied: “Maguro, kohada and anago (tuna, gizzard shad and saltwater eel).” “It’s an incredible thing that this tradition continues and that he’s still going strong 100 years in ... It’s an inspiration to everyone,” Gelb said, wishing Ono happy birthday in Japanese.

Associated Press