Sushi Chefs Are In Shortage. Quality Sushi Schools Are Here To Help

We need more sushi chefs. A lot more.

Sushi has become one of the most popular foods in the U.S. The market size of the sushi restaurant industry in the U.S. reached $27.9 billion in 2022, a 163% increase in 10 years. According to the Japanese government, there were 26,040 Japanese restaurants in the country in 2022, many of which served sushi. The number increased from 3,051 in 1992, an 853% growth in 30 years.

Then, who is making sushi for all these diners?

As you can imagine, sushi chefs have been in a serious shortage. It is not only due to the ever-increasing demand. The limited supply of sushi chefs is also an issue.

Sushi-making is a highly skilled job. The ostensibly simple food made with raw fish and rice requires lots of skills and experience to produce. The renowned 2011 film Jiro Dreams of Sushi depicts the enormous challenges in mastering the craft.

Also, hiring a sushi chef from Japan is becoming harder due to the fewer visas issued for foreign workers by the U.S. government in recent years.

Changing The Traditional Mindset

Even in Japan, sushi chefs are becoming scarce as the younger generations are more reluctant to spend years patiently training themselves under sushi masters.

An obvious solution would be switching the apprenticeship-style learning to a more structured, less time-consuming school education to study sushi. But in the Japanese tradition, schooling has been considered a shortcut and unconscionable.

The sushi industry, however, is becoming more open to the idea of sushi schools in response to the demand from both domestic and international markets. For example, Tokyo College of Sushi & Washoku was founded in 2016. The job placement of the graduates in March 2024 was 100% with 9.3 offers per graduate on average. They now work at well-established sushi restaurants, hotels and resorts in Japan and abroad. These graduates are both Japanese and non-Japanese individuals.

Tokyo Sushi Academy was founded even earlier in 2002 and has over 5,300 graduates working in more than 50 countries worldwide, according to its website.

Quality Sushi Education Overseas

It is not only in Japan to be able to find a reliable professional sushi school.

Andy Matsuda founded Sushi Chef Institute in California in 2002. He was born and raised in a Japanese restaurant family in Kobe and was trained classically at prestigious sushi restaurants. Then he moved to Los Angeles to pursue his career abroad in 1981.

Matsuda thrived as a sushi chef but things changed in 1993 when he fell ill due to excessive work and stress. While going through several years of intensive treatments, he became full of appreciation for the care and support he received in the U.S.

“I wanted to give back. How? I only had my sushi-making skills.” That is why he decided to open a training school for future sushi chefs in America.

As expected, he received a barrage of harsh criticism from peers in the traditional sushi industry. “But already back then, I saw a rapidly growing demand for sushi chefs. I thought a sushi school would be meaningful and could help the entire sushi industry after all.”

Matsuda’s school offers eight-week courses with 10 students in each and private lessons. Notable students include Kyle Connaughton, chef and owner of the Michelin three-star restaurant Single Thread in California.

The number of applicants has been increasing steadily at his school. In recent years, he started to have students not only from the U.S. and Europe but also from Latin American and African countries.

Also, reflecting the rising interest in healthy diets, wealthy, elderly individuals send their private chefs to Matsuda’s classes.

A New Sushi School In London

Sushi Chef Institute has had many students from Europe, not just because of its reputation but for the absence of professional sushi schools in the continent.

Now Europeans have a new option: the aforementioned Tokyo College of Sushi & Washoku opened a branch in London in September 2024.

The chief instructor Yoshihiko Shida has worked as an educator in Japanese culinary institutes for over 32 years. Also, earlier in his career he was a French chef and worked in Switzerland and Guam where he gained a global mindset.

“Throughout history, Japanese people have adopted various dishes from abroad and reinvented them to something new. For example, thickly coated, richly flavored fritters were brought from Portugal in the 16^th century and the Japanese transformed them into Tempura. I would like my students to be equally creative and advance the culinary world,” says Shida.

“To do so, you need to understand the fundamentals of Japanese cuisine. That is what we teach at our school. Sushi does not belong only to Japan anymore. We want our graduates to develop their own style of sushi for their respective audience. I believe that is how sushi’s tradition continues to stay strong and be appreciated in the whole world.”