Naomichi Yasuda was raised in a small fishing village in the Chiba prefecture called Chikura. His country sensibility is balanced by over two decades of experience in Tokyo and New York City. His sushi is simple. Its preparation is reduced to a delicate balance that requires impeccable selection of raw materials and flawless, original execution. Sushi is an artist's craft, requiring an understanding of tradition and constant evolution and innovation. Sushi Yasuda's commitment to this spirit results in food that subtly and brilliantly respects the past and gently moves forward.

"one of the world's great sushi chefs" – Anya von Bremzen, Travel + Leisure, "America's Best Sushi," March 2001

Yasuda is a true artist — his work is utterly original. His ethic of pure, clean simplicity is evident in every aspect of Sushi Yasuda, down to his own uniform of pure white, unembellished by a sewn-in name or logo. Like his sushi, Yasuda stands on substance alone.

Everything is made from scratch and changes daily. Yasuda has a great sensitivity for the nuances of every fish he handles. Depending on the season and the temperature of the waters in the Saganoseki sea, Yasuda will have seki-saba, a rare kind of mackeral from Japan, and a technically identical fish from the Atlantic. Since he has determined that the texture of the rare Japanese variety is more suited to thin slices, he will reserve it for an usuzukuri preparation (paper-thin slices of fish without rice) and uses the Atlantic version for sushi (fish with rice) which calls for thicker cuts. But Yasuda is not interested in variety and virtuosity for the sake of showing off or overwhelming his customers. His breadth and depth of knowledge and his phenomenal skills are strictly at the service of creating a fulfilling, meaningful meal. There are no wasted or gratuitous gestures.

"the menu is dead serious, a purist's paradise of multiple choices among fish species" – William Grimes, New York Times, 3 stars (Excellent), March 1, 2000

While Yasuda brings in fresh fish from all around the world and much from Japan, he highly values good domestic fish. Yasuda personally selects the fish one by one, evaluating each for freshness, size and its "spirit" or "energy." He then carefully begins his comprehensive process of cleaning, preparing and storing. Paper-thin sheets of delicate Japanese cedar-wood line the many of the boxes, and different varieties of fish are stored in separate boxes. Yasuda carefully controls the aging process of his fish—an essential part of making sushi. "Just-caught" fish is not always ideal for being eaten immediately as sushi, and different fish require different methods of refrigeration and storage for preservation and taste.

"Eating the fatty toro, soft and pink and buttery, is a dreamlike experience." – Asia in New York City: A Cultural Travel Guide, The Asia Society, 2001

Yasuda is renowned as a tuna specialist—he typically offers seven or eight options for tuna "fattiness" that apply to his hon-maguro (bluefin) and mebachi-maguro (big-eye) tunas. Yasuda's dexterity at manipulating the oily content of his slices is virtually unlimited and he prepares a wide range of akami (lean), chutoro (medium fatty), and otoro (high fatty) cuts. Other toro options such as his kama toro, taken from the cheek and hagashi toro, the super high-fatty tuna taken mainly from the top of the tail, drop like rain onto the tongue.

"Perfection." – Time Out New York, Eating and Drinking 2004

Also trained in Japan as an eel chef, Yasuda appreciates the impact of freshly prepared eel cooked on a proper Japanese eel grill. Rather than use the ubiquitous, prepackaged, generic stuff to be warmed up in a toaster oven, Yasuda undertakes a laborious process—starting with live eel in some instances—to prepare several varieties of phenomenal white and dark freshwater-eel and sea-eel.

Perhaps the most complex and difficult part of making sushi is perfecting the rice. Yasuda uses a domestically grown mix of Japanese short and medium grain rice, combined with Japanese red and white rice vinegars, Japanese sea salt and small amount of sugar. The water has been purified with bincho-tan (Japanese charcoal). He cooks the rice in precise proportions at calculated temperatures for a specific time. Like a scientist in a lab, he has revised his method after years of research and experiment. Using his hands as an instrument, he evaluates how moist the rice is before cooking it. He adjusts the amount of water accordingly.

"Yasuda's rice is a revelation... Each grain is as eloquent as a haiku." – Anya von Bremzen, Travel + Leisure, "America's Best Sushi," March 2001

The rice is cooked evenly, is subtly sweet and is the ideal "stickiness" to conform to the shape of the inside of Yasuda's hand. He applies six swift strokes and a delicate pressure to the rice to control the amount of space between the grains and to achieve the particular density, size and shape he deems suitable for the kind of fish or vegetable to be placed upon it.

Yasuda understands that each person sitting at his counter has different tastes, different degrees of "sushi experience," different energy levels and moods. He prepares each meal accordingly. Yasuda even considers the size and shape of a person's mouth. He gently queries someone who has never had sushi before to gauge their probable preferences; he will design a meal that stimulates interest, awareness and pleasure. He reminds anyone who might feel pressure to match the quantity or "exotic quotient" of another person's meal that "it is not a competition."

"'sublime sushi' to bring 'tears to your eyes'" – Zagat Survey 2003, Best Japanese & Top Food Ranking: 28 (Extraordinary to Perfection)

Yasuda makes simple, straight sushi. He does not pre-cut his slices or display the fish in a glass case since the quality of fish prepared and stored this way begins to deteriorate almost immediately. Each piece of sushi or sashimi (fish without rice) is custom-prepared and then gracefully delivered from behind Yasuda's counter. Imagine translucent sayori from Kyushu, a small, needle-beaked, mackerel-family fish that crackles in your mouth with a clean, bright taste. The delicate rice unifies the disparate flavors. A single piece of sushi is a whole story unto itself. It is best taken whole, all at once and usually "straight"—without the addition of soy sauce—as Yasuda has applied his special shoyu in exact proportion.

Sushi Yasuda is a calming space. The floor, walls, ceiling, tables and sushi bar are composed of solid bamboo planks. Slightly different clear finishes and a geometric grid pattern on a few of the wall surfaces create a sense of dimension and groundedness. The airy interior is a haven from the noise and grit of the city outside. Tucked away on East Forty-Third Street between Second and Third Avenues, the inside can be seen from the street through the clean, Mondrian-like design of the vast main window. The United Nations is visible looking east and Grand Central Station is visible to the west.

"The interior's elegant, clean lines veer toward minimalism, but the bamboo planks that compose the floor, ceiling, bars and walls... are as richly textured to the eye as they are smooth to the touch." – Jamal A. Rayyis, New York Magazine, "Profile," 2006

The sushi bar itself, which Yasuda designed and helped build by hand, is made entirely of unfinished bamboo. At the end of lunch and dinner, the counter and tables are cleaned in the time-consuming, traditional fashion with nuka, a pure, unprocessed rice bran. No harsh detergents are used on the tables and the unfinished surfaces are honed to a beautiful, buttery smooth finish.