Vancouver is a city full of food options; no matter what you’re craving, we got it! But, if there’s one cuisine Vancouver is known for, it’s sushi. The Metro Vancouver area has over 600 sushi restaurants, with the most famous probably being Tojo’s.
Japanese chef Hidekazu Tojo’s culinary career started in 1968 as an apprentice at a ryotei restaurant in Osaka, and just a few years later, he became a sushi chef. However, Tojo felt that the strict traditions of Japanese culture restricted his full culinary potential.
In the early 1970s, Chef Tojo moved out to Vancouver and began working as a chef at a restaurant called Maneki, opened by the same man who owns the Vancouver Japanese grocery chain Fujiya. At the time, Vancouver only had four Japanese restaurants.
Chef Tojo says that when he first moved to Vancouver, Westerners weren’t too fond of traditional sushi with raw fish and seaweed paper. To win over their hearts, Tojo created less-traditional rolls. He hid the seaweed paper under the rice instead of wrapped around the roll and used ingredients like avocado. This led to the creation of the immensely popular California Roll.
Did you know the California Roll is a Canadian creation? Japanese chef, Hidekazu Tojo moved to Vancouver in 1971. As a way to introduce sushi to North Americans, Tojo used non-traditional ingredients and rolled the sushi inside-out, hiding the seaweed. 1/2 #AsianHeritageMonth pic.twitter.com/ax1ufxVD55
— Dan Chen 陳卓龍 (@_DanChen) May 8, 2021
California rolls aren’t the full extent of Chef Tojo’s creations; Tojo is also the man behind the BC Roll, the Rainbow Roll, and the Spider Roll, along with countless other dishes and culinary techniques.
In the late 1980s, Chef Tojo opened his famous restaurant: Tojo’s. Tojo’s serves Japanese-inspired cuisine with a Pacific North-West twist.
The menu at Tojo’s is delicious, with something for everyone. But if you want to experience Tojo’s the way Chef Tojo implied, order omakase. Translated from Japanese, it means “I leave it up to you.” Chef Tojo will pick the menu for you based on the best local ingredients in season.
Chef Tojo has won many awards and honours, even being named one of the top 10 sushi chefs in the world by The Wallstreet Journal. In 2016, Chef Tojo was honoured by the Japanese government as one of thirteen Goodwill Ambassadors for Japanese Cuisine, an extremely prestigious title.
You can still find Chef Tojo creating culinary masterpieces at his restaurant over 30 years after it opened. He’s even working on a vegan menu to keep up with Vancouver’s growing vegan culture. And he has no plans for retirement anytime soon.