Back of House Staff

Michelin-starred Chef Morihiro “Mori” Onodera’s 40-year culinary career began on his family’s modest livestock, vegetable and rice farm in Fujisawa (Iwate Prefecture), Japan. Out of necessity, he learned to prepare their meals from scratch, including homemade soy sauce, tofu and their farm grown rice. The seasonality and freshness of the ingredients available on their farm made a long lasting imprint on his later culinary philosophy. He worked for two years in Tokyo restaurants perfecting his skills, before arriving in Los Angeles in 1982, and spent the next two decades in the seminal restaurants Matsuhisa, Katsu and R-23 as well as Hatsuhana in New York City. He opened his celebrated namesake sushi bar in West Los Angeles which he helmed until 2011, receiving a Michelin star in 2008 and 2009.