Sushi Chef Institute
Recently I stopped by Sushi Chef Institute in Torrance and met with the owner Andy Matsuda. He let me watch while he was teaching one of his classes. His students were locked into every word their mentor was explaining. This was a first for me, to be in the kitchen watching a master chef prepare a meal and teach at the same time.
The school started in 2002 in Little Tokyo and has been at the Torrance location since 2011. Sushi Chef Institute has a two month completion time for their program, after which they support their graduates in finding a job in the field. With students that have come in from thirty five different countries and many states within the United States. Chef Andy mentioned that his program focuses on five specialties. Sharpening knives, sushi rice cooking, cutting fish, nigari sushi, and roll making. He said that in Japan nobody really teaches, people learn from watching. In his program there is hands on training, textbooks, handouts, and then repeating the process. Learning over and over again is emphasized.
The Institute has an impressive list of celebrity graduates like Fabiola from Barcelona and Chef Engin to name a few. Over 100 of their graduates have gone on to own a restaurant and over 1,500 have graduated the program.
Chef Andy spoke of how he came from humble beginnings. He cooked his first miso soup when he we just 3 years old, he fondly recalls that’w when he found happiness. He is happiest when making people happy by cooking for them. This is the emotion that drove him to be a chef. When he was 20 years old, he was backpacking through 16 countries. After his visit to Los Angeles, he decided to move here. He came to the states in 1981 with just one knife. It was a pleasure meeting a local South Bay business. Check out their website www.sushischool.net