Kuni Sato

Kuniyuki Sato, better known as Kuni the sushi chef, arrived on the scene 15 years ago from Japan, and changed the way Buffalonians look at sushi forever.

Kuni grew up in a small village of 200, nearly 200 miles from Tokyo. His father and mother were rice farmers, and in keeping with tradition, his older brother, being the number one son, stayed to run the farm while Kuni was free to explore other horizons.

Kuni grew up loving American culture, particularly the music and movies, so when his high school friend asked him to come to New Jersey to help with his catering business, Kuni paid a visit. Six months later he moved there and worked in his friend’s basement, cooking and running errands to Japanese restaurants. Most of the people Kuni met and spoke with in America were Japanese, and aside from trips to New York City, he didn’t meet many Americans or use his English.

“We took English in junior high school, but the teachers weren’t fluent, so it wasn’t so good. When I was 28, a few years before I moved here, I took private lessons from a teacher who studied here in America,” Kuni said. Though they didn’t teach all of the nuances of American-speak, Kuni said it was better than nothing. Still, he couldn’t speak much English when he moved here, and common phrases and slang still throw him a bit.

Tired of the basement in New Jersey, Kuni visited a Japanese employment agent who specialized in Japanese chefs and also ran a cooking school. “He told me, ‘Buffalo is great. Good place, nice community.’ I moved to Buffalo, skeptical but willing to give it a shot,” Kuni said. He thought Buffalo was in Canada, and found out just before he left for here that it was in New York. “I thought, Canada? I don’t want to go to Canada! So I was happy.”

The agent assured Kuni’s American employer that he was a sushi chef, and immediately sent him next door to his cooking school to teach him. “I worked in restaurants in Japan, but never as a sushi chef,” Kuni said. I learned at the school, and then my friend in New Jersey taught me some too before I left for Buffalo.”

Kuni worked at Saki’s on Church Street, his indoctrination to above-ground life amongst Americans. One of the first culture differences that threw him was all the talk. “People talk a lot,” he said. “They’re more outgoing and say whatever they want. Women are more active and talk a lot. And I was surprised that people call their bosses by their first names. I was shocked the first time I saw a women out at dinner, dressed up, drinking beer from a bottle. But I’m okay with it now. I learn quick.” Kuni was also surprised that people go out for drinks just to drink. “In Japan, there’s always food with drinking.”

He spent 4 and half years at Saki’s before taking a six-month hiatus and opening Kuni’s on Elmwood, facing Cleveland Avenue. He became a fixture in the community during his 10 years on Elmwood and created an enormous following. Then he closed up and took a year off. In an unprecedented move, Kuni was actually closing because business was too brisk and it left little time for anything else. In that year he engaged in carpentry, gardening and photography.

Kuni‘s expert gardening got him included in last years garden walk. Photography seems to be his true passion, however, and he has melded his hobbies with his work, taking pictures of the food he creates as well as his flowers. “The flower pictures make me feel so alive through the lens,” he said. And then he laughed at himself for the sound of it, “I sound like big artist.” But that’s what our passions do for us and why we choose one hobby over another. It’s not something he has to do, after all.

What he has to do is make sushi again. He opened Kuni’s To Go on Lexington last year, and business is brisk once again. Kuni works shorter days, segmented into lunch and dinner with a nap in between. He sees a lot of old customers and has newfound regulars he’d never seen before.

When asked about differences between his home and Buffalo, Kuni said they don’t do ‘funky’ rolls like California rolls of shrimp tempura in Japan. They use tuna, snapper and the local daily catch, and sushi restaurants serve mainly sushi. “American sushi is more specialized,” Kuni said.

So how about lifestyle? “This is like winning a lottery compared to the past,” Kuni said. He talked about how hundreds of years ago; taxes were paid in rice in Japan. “The government tells you how many bags, and if a farmer didn’t grow enough, they had to find another job to make enough cash to buy rice with which to give to the government. Kuni said all of this on a Sunday when he had fallen just short of the amount of rice he needed the previous night, forcing him to cook more a half an hour before closing.

Aside from vowing to visit Japan a few times per year to visit his family and elderly parents, Kuni is firmly rooted in Buffalo. Aren’t we glad for that?

Kuni.s To Go
226 Lexington
881.3800