How Katsuya Invented Its Most Iconic Sushi Dish: Spicy Tuna on Crispy Rice
Golden, buttery toasted rice with a kiss of soy sauce, melt-in-your-mouth fresh tuna, a sliver of sharp serrano pepper — these are the components of America’s favorite sushi bite: spicy tuna on crispy rice. There’s a version of this dish at practically every sushi restaurant in L.A., if not the U.S., from low-key strip-mall joints to swanky spots like Nobu. The combination of spicy raw fish and warm, popcorn-like rice is utterly irresistible. But where did all of this crispy rice come from?
The originator, by most accounts, is chef Katsuya Uechi, the CEO and owner of Katsuya Group, which currently operates a number of Japanese restaurants scattered across the greater Los Angeles area and even more in New York, Miami, the Bahamas, and Dubai.
Okinawa native Uechi mastered sushi-making in his home country before immigrating to the States in 1984. His first restaurant, Sushi Katsu-ya, opened in Studio City in 1997. Despite its no-frills environs, sushi connoisseurs and soon celebrities started flocking to the Valley to get a bite of Uechi’s pristinely prepared nigiri. Sushi — once marginalized in America — was suddenly the hottest ticket in town.
Of course, this wasn’t only because of Sushi Katsu-ya. The first sushi restaurant in America reportedly opened in L.A.’s Little Tokyo in the ‘60s, and in the ‘80s and ‘90s, Asian flavors earned more mainstream acceptance in restaurants across the country. Still, Hollywood’s embracing of Katsu-ya helped drive the growing interest in Japanese cuisine in L.A. and beyond, especially as Uechi’s profile continued to rise (he was named chef of the year by Angeleno Magazine in 2006).
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Soon, it became clear that Uechi had outgrown his Studio City storefront. In 2006, he teamed up with the restaurant group SBE to open a second Katsuya, in Brentwood.
While the original location is still going strong, Brentwood is where crispy rice with spicy tuna made its debut. Legend has it that Uechi created the dish for a diner who said they didn’t care for sushi; the chef set out to create a bite that would change his mind forever.
The dish starts with rectangles of vinegary sushi rice, pan-seared in butter and soy sauce, which are topped with a quenelle of bluefin tuna laced with spicy dressing and green onions. To finish, a thin slice of serrano chile is balanced atop the fish. What makes the dish so compulsively delicious is the interplay of all of the different textures, and the balance of heat from the chiles and coolness from the raw tuna.
Uechi’s genius lies in seamlessly combining Japanese flavors with American sensibilities. Critics may say a dish like this warps the pure art of sushi, yet others think of it as brilliant innovation. Our take? If it wasn’t so good, there wouldn’t be so many imitators — some with the addition of spicy mayo, jalapeño instead of serrano, or salmon in lieu of tuna.
In fact, many new chefs are inspired by Ueichi’s creation, and have developed their own playful riffs that are neither strictly Japanese nor American, yet feel entirely rooted in Los Angeles. Such is the case for Alex Suzuki, the executive chef of Kodō in the Arts District, who offers a spicy tuna on crispy rice that’s baked with clarified butter and topped with a fluffy avocado mousse.
“Katsuya is the signature, the staple. Copy and pasting is boring, though,” Suzuki says. “I only use big eye tuna because it’s leaner, cleaner, and has more texture than bluefin and yellowfin. We also use our house chili oil instead of Sriracha, which gives it more aroma,” he explains. For Suzuki, crispy rice with tuna feels like a mandatory addition to Japanese menus in L.A.: “Everyone asks for it.”
Chef Dan Rabilwongse, co-owner of buzzy izakaya Budonoki in Virgil Village, takes his version a step further, swapping out fish entirely in favor of the sour Thai pork sausage called naem (a recipe borrowed from his mother). It’s served with crispy rice and a crunchy slaw loaded with raw cabbage and fresh herbs. “For me, it just made sense to do it,” he says. “The textural contrast is what makes this dish work: the fattiness of the cold sour sausage, the crunchy rice, the herbaceous crisp from the cabbage.” It’s not exactly the same thing, but the blueprint is there — hot rice and chilled protein, crunch and pliability, and heat tempered by a cooling vegetable.
For those who aren’t yet sold on the idea of spicy tuna on crispy rice, it should be noted that such a thing does, in fact, have roots in Japan. See yaki onigiri: grilled rice balls, basted in sesame oil and soy sauce, that are a common drinking snack at countless izakayas. There’s also okoge — scorched rice prepared in donabe pots — that has a toasty bitterness that tastes pleasant with tsukemono, Japanese pickles. It’s not such a far-fetched idea to cook rice to the point of crunchiness; Uechi recognized this and ran with it.
Crispy rice remains Katsuya’s best-selling dish by far, with over two millions bites served, and continues to be a must-order item for first-timers and regulars alike. “Chef takes great pride in his creation, as it has become a signature dish that has evolved and contributed to the fusion of Japanese and American culinary influences,” says Sam Nazarian, the CEO of SBE, the restaurant group that now owns Katsuya. “He especially loves that people continue coming back for it, even decades later.”
Kat Thompson is a Bangkok-born, Los Angeles-raised writer. She was previously a senior staff writer of food & beverage at Thrillist and has written for Food & Wine, Bon Appetit, Eater, and more.
