Why You Shouldn't Need Soy Sauce on Your Sushi

MUNCHIES and Kirin Ichiban are excited to announce the launch of Omakase Dinners, a series of intimate, invite-only events with our favorite sushi chefs. In partnership with New York Sushi Ko, we’ll be hosting a different chef from around the country each week, serving four nine-person dinners for a select group of friends.

This week, our dinners featured Tim Archuleta, the executive chef and owner of Ichi Sushi in San Francisco, whose menu uses plenty of blowtorches, shiso leaves, and uni. And, of course, some truly incredible fresh fish.

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Archuleta let us pick his brain about how he got his start as a sushi chef, why you shouldn’t use soy sauce on his sushi, and the trick he recommends for getting the most flavor out of your fish.

I was born and raised in Sacramento and have lived in the Bay Area ever since, with the exception of one year in Maui. I grew up in the restaurant business. I was always front-of-house because my parents owned restaurants while I was growing up. It was in my blood already.

While I was going to college, I started to eat sushi, and within six months, I applied to become a sushi apprentice. It was something very new to me. My first experiences with fish were with my dad. He would go to the fish market and pan-fry the fish, and the house would smell like terrible things. It wasn’t a positive experience at all at first. The thought to eat it raw was even more disgusting.

When I started off eating it raw—as most people in America do—it was in really crazy Japanese fusion rolls: crab, eel, tempura shrimp; I finally made my way to the sushi bar, a place in Santa Cruz, and I noticed that there were no Japanese people making the sushi. I was afraid that they were going to make me eat something that I didn’t want to eat, but they were very nice and didn’t make me eat uni back then, which terrified me [at the time]. I was watching the guys using these cool knives—I have a thing for knives—talking to customers, and especially beautiful women, who were buying them beers and pouring them sake. I was 21 at the time, so I thought, Are you kidding me? And they make tips?

That was my first draw to it. Being 21 and being able to drink on the job and being around beautiful women as a single person were huge perks which probably motivate many 21-year-olds.

I was trained by a Japanese sushi chef who has been making sushi his whole life. His parents owned a sushi bar while he was growing up in Tokyo, so the proper techniques, the proper ethics, are maybe unique combinations for me. But they’re all there for you to really enjoy the fish.

At Ichi, we serve my version of what I’ve eaten in Japan. It’s really hard to explain to Americans and Californians what you can get in Japan versus what you can get here.

I put a little bit of salt and citrus on a piece of fish. People want to call it “fusion,” but it’s a more modern style of sushi that I’ve been served in Japan by Japanese chefs in SF, too. But since they haven’t seen it and they’re used to dipping their rice into a big mess of soy sauce and wasabi, they think it’s nontraditional. The real fact is that the bowl of wasabi and soy sauce is nothing that you’d see in Japan.

I think the biggest misconception that people in the US have about Japanese food is that wasabi is served on everything in sushi. But it’s not. You might get fresh garlic or ginger, and the occasional wasabi on tuna. If I had a dime for every time I’ve heard someone say “I love wasabi, and I love sushi,” I’d be a millionaire.

Wasabi is just one small element in such a broader spectrum of what the cuisine is, which is all about balance. The wasabi is there to kill the bacteria, fresh garlic is there to kill bacteria. Everything that the Japanese place there has purpose and function—not just flavor. The daikon that you get with sashimi has an enzyme that actually helps break down fish oil in your stomach.

Never dip the rice into the shoyu. It will destroy that piece of sushi. You might as well throw it on the ground and stomp on it. You’re going to destroy the flavor of the rice and the fish, it will have collected too much liquid so it won’t stay together, and it’s the biggest no-no in eating nigiri. Use your fingers when eating nigiri. Flip the fish upside down and have the fish hit your tongue to have the best experience.

But pairing beer with sushi is delicious. If I’m gonna go have sushi, I’m most likely going to have nigiri, and beer is the perfect compliment.

In terms of how my menu might differ from other omakase experiences, I don’t think [other] people season all of their fish. I season each piece. There is no soy sauce or extra wasabi with my sushi, because you eat it as it comes.

This [menu] is pretty much what you would get at my restaurant, depending on the season. We use Japanese fish, so that varies on the season. For me, it’s a balance of acid, salt, savory, and umami. I read once that the true way to describe umami is once you’re done eating something and it tastes so good, you want to take another bite immediately. It’s an addiction.

Right now is an amazing time to be in San Francisco for food. The amount of restaurants that are opening with talented chefs is great. Nowadays, you aren’t waiting for chefs to wait 15 years to open up a restaurant. There are a lot of pop-ups and food trucks, and in that sense, it’s really interesting. There are a lot of new ideas.

I think for a long time, we relied on our ingredients and not necessarily technique, and now you’re seeing them come together. There’s no doubt about it: our produce, fish, and meat is insane. It’s funny; every chef goes back home and brings their home cooking into their professional kitchen. It’s not always the most interesting, but you’re seeing them turn them into refined food.