FOCUS: Salmon penetrating Japan’s sushi restaurant scene

January 21, 2020

Tokyo--Salmon established itself on the Japanese sushi restaurant scene relatively recently, and the fish's popularity is growing further, especially Norwegian salmon.

Some restaurants at the Toyosu wholesale food market site in Tokyo's Koto Ward added salmon to their menus only after they moved from the Tsukiji market in Chuo Ward, which was closed in October 2018 due to its relocation to Toyosu.

"At the Tsukiji market, many restaurants did not offer salmon, for reasons including their passion for homegrown natural fish and disinclination toward fat foreign-cultured fish," said an official of the Sushi Dokoro Yamazaki restaurant at Toyosu.

But the quality of imported salmon has been "improving considerably," the official said.

The growing use of salmon in sushi restaurants is also attributed to the fish's popularity among the increasing number of tourists from abroad, the official added.

Salmon is "now attracting even more orders than tuna," a signature sushi menu item, according to another sushi restaurant in Toyosu.

Among high-end sushi restaurants, Tsukiji Suzutomi in the capital's Ginza shopping district started to offer Norwegian salmon last autumn.

"The taste of Norwegian salmon is outstanding among farmed fish," said an official of fish wholesaler Kakujoe Gyorui Holdings Co. "It is starting to become popular even among elderly people."

The Nagaoka, Niigata Prefecture-based company has seen its sales of Norwegian salmon increase in recent years. It annually handles about 200 tons, including Aurora Salmon fish airlifted to Japan in about 36 hours from a processing facility in Norway.

Salmon shipments from the European country to Japan totaled 32,000 tons in 2018, up nearly 60 pct from a decade ago, according to official Norwegian data.

The cold seawater along the Norwegian coast provides perfect conditions for farming salmon, an official of the Norwegian Seafood Council said. Jiji Press