Endo dreams of sushi: a trip around Japan with one of the world’s greatest chefs
Journalist Kieran Morris travels across Japan with acclaimed sushi chef Endo Kazutoshi, visiting the suppliers and craftspeople behind his Michelin-starred London restaurant, which had recently been destroyed by fire. The trip reveals the decades-long relationships, philosophical depth, and personal sacrifices behind elite omakase sushi. Despite the loss of his restaurant and later his mother, Endo continues forward, guided by a lifelong pursuit of mastery.
Summary
The piece opens with a dramatic scene: sushi chef Endo Kazutoshi is on the Eurostar to Paris when he learns that his Michelin-starred London restaurant, Endo at the Rotunda, has been gutted by fire. Despite the devastation, he keeps a long-planned reservation at Taillevent in Paris, sitting in a daze through the meal before racing home. The fire destroyed not just the restaurant's physical structure — built largely from 200-year-old Hinoki wood — but irreplaceable personal items, including knives gifted to him by his sushi master and his late father.
The article then shifts to a week-long trip around Japan that author and ghostwriter Kieran Morris takes with Endo two months later, originally planned to gather material for a book about Endo's life and philosophy. The journey takes them through eight cities in eight days, visiting the farmers, fishmongers, vinegar brewers, and ceramicists who supply Endo's restaurant. At a biodynamic rice facility in Fukushima, Endo obsesses over protein levels in rice — wanting his between 5–6%, softer than most chefs specify — and learns that climate change is already degrading the quality of his supplier's crop. The farmer notes the rice is too sweet due to warming temperatures, and says it will only get worse.
At Toyosu fish market in Tokyo, Endo visits Hicho, an eighth-generation tuna merchant whose family has supplied him for 25 years. The piece describes the painstaking craft of tuna carving, the trust-based relationships that govern access to the best fish, and growing anxiety about dwindling fish stocks, rising costs, and warming oceans — even as global demand for high-end omakase continues to rise and prices climb toward £500 per head. A darkly comic episode unfolds at a tiny sushi restaurant near the market, where journalist Morris, severely hungover from the previous night, is unable to eat the exceptional sushi placed before him and eventually suffers a humiliating episode of sickness in the market's loading area.
The article traces Endo's biography in depth. Born into a third-generation sushi family in Yokohama, he was a national-level amateur wrestler before his mother issued an ultimatum: take over the family restaurant or be removed from the family register. He chose the restaurant. His apprenticeship was grueling — rejected from top restaurants for being too old at 22, he spent years scrubbing drains, making staff meals, and not being allowed to touch fish, training under a master who had studied with Jiro Ono. Returning to his father's restaurant at 27, he found the quality wanting, said so, and was thrown out again. His father privately told a family member that night that his son's philosophy had already outgrown his restaurant.
A formative relationship with Rose Gray, co-founder of the River Cafe, proved transformative. Gray, who had been quietly eating at Endo's Zuma counter for years, told him to use British produce and win a Michelin star. She taught him how to source seasonally and make provenance part of the story — lessons that directly shaped the Rotunda. When Gray was dying of cancer, Endo prepared her a carefully arranged bento box; she died shortly after sending a thank-you note.
The trip also visits Endo's family restaurant in Yokohama, where his reserved brother Toshio still runs the counter and his elderly mother Sumi, now in her 90s, holds court from the apartment above. Sumi had shaped Endo's early life completely — enrolling him in tea ceremony, floristry, and calligraphy — and her influence runs through everything he does. In the months after the Japan trip, Sumi passes away. After the fire, she had sat with Endo in the kitchen and told him firmly: 'Nothing is finished.'
The piece closes with Endo doing a temporary residency at Annabelle's private members' club in London, his team back together, his suppliers returning, and — remarkably — his knives rescued from the fire by a firefighter who had dined at the Rotunda and remembered where they were kept. Endo reflects on the fire with equanimity: 'The Rotunda was seven years. Seven great years that the fire can't take away.'
Key Insights
- Endo argues that rice constitutes 80% of sushi quality, and specifies a protein level of 5–6% for his rice — softer than most chefs care to stipulate — importing both the grain and Fukushima spring water to London for consistency.
- Endo's rice farmer and seaweed supplier both independently reported that climate change is degrading the quality of their top-level produce, with the farmer stating the warming problem 'will just be like this now' unless reversed.
- Access to the best sushi ingredients, particularly tuna from merchants like Hicho, is governed not by money but by decades of trust-building — Endo spent years visiting and asking questions before he had his own restaurant, so suppliers would trust him when the time came.
- The global omakase market is booming despite — or because of — ingredient scarcity: London's high-end sushi counter count has tripled since the Rotunda opened, prices have climbed toward £500 per head, and demand has not yet peaked.
- Endo's mother gave him a binary ultimatum at university graduation: take over the family restaurant or be removed from the family register. He chose the restaurant — but his father privately said that night that his son's philosophy had already outgrown the business.
- Rose Gray of the River Cafe instructed Endo to use British produce and win a Michelin star, and trained him on her days off from Zuma — a mentorship Endo credits as the direct origin of his sourcing philosophy and dishes like his langoustine and olive oil nigiri.
- Endo's path to mastery followed Shu-Ha-Ri, a Japanese three-stage concept: first follow the rules, then break them, then transcend them entirely — and he felt he was close to the third stage when the fire occurred.
- A firefighter who had previously dined at the Rotunda remembered the location of Endo's knives during the blaze and rescued them — including the knife given by his late father and one from his sushi master — which Endo described as the turning point in his emotional recovery.
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