Raw Opportunity For Sushi Chef

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It wasn’t the tsunami that killed chef Hiroyuki Naruke’s Tokyo sushi restaurant, it was fear.

Despite sustaining no damage in the 2011 tsunami that swept into the Tohoku region north of the capital city, customers stayed away from his restaurant in droves, worried that radiation from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant had found its way into local fish. Business fell off so sharply that when an offer came to open in Los Angeles he closed the seven-year-old restaurant.

He had three loyal fans 5,500 miles away at the L.A. law firm of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver: Shon Morgan, John Quinn and Ryan Goldstein, regulars at Naruke’s restaurant when they worked out of the firm’s Tokyo office.

“I eat sushi almost every day in Los Angeles,” Morgan said, but eating it in Japan was a whole level above. “I couldn’t believe the difference. It’s a higher level of preparation and I kept thinking, gosh, I wish I could eat this every day.”

Now he can. The three helped Naruke start a restaurant, the 26-seat restaurant Q in downtown Los Angeles, which opened three weeks ago. Like Naruke’s restaurant in Tokyo, it features traditional-style fish only, no California rolls and the like.

Naruke said coming to the United States was tough, not so much because he was worried about starting over and learning the language, but he wasn’t sure if the traditional Japanese style would be accepted by local customers.

He made two scouting trips before moving to Los Angeles, visiting famous chefs and exploring local fish markets. The original plan was to duplicate the Tokyo menu, but it turned out that Q is able to offer local fish that he didn’t serve in Japan.

Morgan said he and the other owners, a group that in addition to Quinn and Goldstein includes a Japanese investor, haven’t put any pressure on Naruke to be commercially viable at the expense of compromising his principles.

It might not turn out to be an issue.

The partners, who invested about $2 million in the venture, said that based on early responses, they expect it to be profitable early next year.

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